


Enemies Beyond Repair

by PsychicDash



Category: Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound, Mother 3, Super Smash Brothers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6157060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychicDash/pseuds/PsychicDash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas' parents have been gone for months, and the boy has recently found himself trapped and facilitated. However, when a rude and fire-enraged boy decides to free him, it's not how the blond expected it to be. In the end, Ness needs Lucas, but not for the right reason. Will the hatted boy change his mind before it's too late?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. So Young

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Another Ness and Lucas story in an AU atmosphere. I have an account on FF as well under the same name, but this site seemed cool to post on. So far, this site is so clean... NICE. Hope you enjoy this new story! I'll try to keep it updated.

_“Lucas.”_

_…_

A small, sharp breath was released from his lips.

...

_“Lucas!”_

His bloodshot eyes ripped open at the light before him. He looked around. His breathing was off.

He was in his room. Everything was perfectly normal. This confused the boy. For a moment, he thought he was being chased from a strange light. But everything was okay, now. Everything was okay.

Recently, he's been having weird dreams. The same voice just came calling to him randomly, whether or not he was having a dream. It'd drive him crazy; he never knew where it came from, there was never a face he could turn to in order to see where that voice originated from. He just felt lost whenever he began hearing it, so lost it became an ongoing case of nightmares. It all started and began for a year so far, cases getting more severe by the month.

The blond's eyes reddened up, displaying a show of his fear. The tears built, but never poured. He shook as he wrapped himself tighter with the blanket that already covered him. Carefully, he pulled his arm from out of the warmth and reached for the house phone on his dresser.

The call never worked, and he knew. The times he needed them most were when they were completely gone.

The phone's dial tone went off, and Lucas listened to the ringing, hoping that either one of them would pick up so that he could talk to them. His lower lip trembled as he tried to hold back his tears. Not tears from the fear, but now from the fact that every single time, the phone call really did never work, and that his hopes are meaningless.

After a minute or so of the internal ring, the call finally brought the blond to the voice box that said its generic opening, which was then followed by the beep, which was when Lucas decided to begin talking.

"Mom, I'm s-scared again, I-I keep getting the same nightmares."

Pause. He forcefully took in a soft breath.

"The doctor isn't really helping, and I can't—"

Lucas started to choke up on his own air as his body turned cold. He couldn't stop shaking, now, and it was as if his muscles wouldn't stop contracting and relaxing. The tears that he tried so hard to hold back now poured out in a clean, painful trail. When he recovered his normal breathing and stopped his coughing fit, his fingers had enough coordination to press the 'end' button on the phone. If anything, he knew his parents at least checked their voicemails. Never answered, but at least checked. It was like yelling into a dark cave without an echo.

Afterwards, he clumsily placed the phone back into the charger holder and sat up completely on his bed. He scooted to the far right of it and opened up the topmost compartment of his drawer, and pulled out a bottle of pills. Pills that his doctor usually referred to as 'happy pills that will calm you down.' Lucas agreed on the 'calm down' part, but not so much on the 'happy.'

Without hesitation, the boy yanked off the top shakily and poured out more than 5 pills, but took two out of the bunch as he replaced the overflow back into the bottle and closed the lid. From there, he reached for his bottle of water right next to it, and chugged down the pills with the drink.

After a few minutes, already, the pills started to do its work and calm the shakiness from Lucas’ body. A side effect that came with it was, luckily for Lucas, also drowsiness. Being waken up by a voice in his dream in the middle of the night was scary for the boy, but with these pills, he would happily fall asleep once again, and without worry.

* * *

**The next morning.**

The blond boy woke up easily and without much pain. The pills drew him into a deep slumber, and quite frankly, would give him the best sleeps he ever felt. He got off the bed with leisure with his hair a mess and wrinkled pajamas on, and groggily stepped out into the hallway where he made his way to the kitchen. Not a single sound was in the house other than the steps upon the wooden flooring. Along the way to the kitchen, Lucas always checked his parents’ room, which again, would always be empty. The whole house was empty and it was always like this. Lucas never looked forward to much things happening.

His morning homeschool classes would soon be starting, and Lucas figured he’d make a sandwich and eat it before his usual teacher would be coming. He opened the fridge lazily, took out the ingredients, and simply settled the ham and cheese onto the bread after he applied his desired mayo. Afterwards, he brought his sandwich to the table and sat on one of the chairs. The table fit 4 people, but there’d usually only be one sitting at it. He began to munch hungrily at the sandwich, not all that into it since it was something he made for himself everyday.

Although it may seem lonely for Lucas, he was more than used to it. He used to feel lonely when he was little, but now since he’s of age 15, he was able to understand that everyone was just _busy_. Too busy that he just didn’t bother anymore. It was much better when his dog Boney was here, but unfortunately, the dog encountered a bad accident in the forest, and never came back. Lucas found his dog’s body near a river surrounded by trees; he didn’t understand what killed him, but he knew that day when his dog died, something inside him died as well.

_Rumble rumble…_

Taking the last bite of his sandwich came with a rumble right beneath his feet. It was very minor, but Lucas panicked and thought it was some sort of earthquake. The house was shaking a little, and he took the safety precaution of ducking and covering right beneath his table. Small whimpers escaped the boy’s mouth as he waited out the prolonged rumble. It seemed to stop only after about half a minute. He was unsure if it was safe to get out from under the table, but he did, and everything seemed just fine. No damage of the sort was done.

Lucas scratched his head, confused. Just a moment ago he was scared to death, but now he’s wondering why there would ever be an earthquake in Tazmily, considering it never had one before.

_Hhhhhhh…_

An evil ghostly moan was heard right behind the boy. Lucas whipped his head around at the sound, only to find his teddy bear afloat in the air. All it did was levitate in that same place, eyes glowing red. Lucas froze in place as his heart raced at the speed of light. He was scared to death and it was as if his body didn’t even know how to run.

_Hhhhhh_ …

It made the noise again, making the boy shake and nearly drive him to tears. When suddenly, the bear started to emit a blue flash of light from its body. It didn’t look safe to Lucas. Before he knew it, the bear shot out a laser from its eyes at the blond’s arm. Lucas couldn’t dodge, and received the hit straight on.

“AAGH!” Lucas screamed at the pain as he put an arm around his hurt spot. The laser burned a large circle onto his forearm. At this point, he unfroze himself and broke out into a run to get away from the bear. There was no question now that the bear wanted to kill the boy.

However, the teddy bear blocked the exit, only leaving Lucas to run back up the stairs and into his bedroom. He slammed the door in the thing’s face and locked it, putting his back up against it to forbid any other way for it to get in. The bear was silent for awhile, until the house started to rumble again. Lucas held his hands to his ears, trying to calm down. Everything scared him right now and he didn’t know what to do; his bed toy was attacking him and there’s nowhere else to run. Tears streamed down from his reddened eyes as he hoped for something good to happen, and that the bear would be unable to get inside the room.

_“...Lucas!!”_ a male voice was heard in the distance. Lucas could barely hear it, that with the earthquake and moans of the ghostly bear.

_“Where are you, sweetie?!”_ now a woman’s voice came it. Immediately, Lucas knew it was his parents.

“Mom!! MOM!!” Lucas yelled from the other side of his bedroom door. “HELP!!” he cried aloud with undying hope.

_“Look out!”_ his father warned his mother. When again, another laser beam was heard.

_“Gyah-ha!”_ his mom yelled out of pain, a loud thump occurring right after.

“MOM!!” Worried, the boy bounded right out of his room to see what has occurred behind the closed door. Right now, his mother was on the floor from being shot in the leg, while his father held up a futuristic gun. Lucas could tell it didn’t shoot bullets, but something of another form. The answer came to him once his father shot the gun, letting out a yellow ray of electricity erupt from its barrel. It hit the bear only once, and already the toy came falling down from the air.

Altogether, the rumbling and moans stopped, bringing peace around once again. His father didn’t even take another glance at the soulless bear, for he was more worried about his wife. Lucas came running to her side, as well.

“Hinawa, are you okay!?” the father asked. Currently, the parents were in their work clothes right now; lab coats. They were lead scientists that constantly worked at the TRC, the Tazmily Research Center. It was a big company and his parents always rolled in dough, when in actuality they never even had time to spend it.

“It hurts so much…!” She whimpered slightly. The laser burned harshly through her pants and into her right thigh, and only seemed to be spreading by the second. Even though she was in a constant burning pain, her caring eyes went to Lucas first. “L-LUKE!” she wailed, grabbing his arm. “He’s been shot, too!”

His dad, Flint, seemed to panic even more than he was right now. He picked up his phone and called his company. He yelled into the phone, demanding people at the house, now.

“S-Sweetie, does it hurt?” his mother asked him, holding him in her arms. She held a constant grimace as she tried, herself, to deal with the pain.

“N-No?” Lucas looked at his arm where the circular burn laid. He hovered a hand over it, but he felt no pain at all. He took a moment to compare his wound to his mother’s. The burn was eating into his mother’s thigh while Lucas’ burn only looked to be getting better. His mom looked relieved by that, but she was very confused.

“They’ll be here soon.” His father shut the phone off and came to the both of them and held them in his arms. “We’ll get those burns fixed.”

Hinawa smiled, and Lucas did, too. It was a surprise to see them here at this time, and Lucas wanted to treasure every moment of it before he had to go back to the usual.

People in different suits seemed to arrive at the place as if some sort of murder was committed. There were cops, detectives, doctors, and even yellow tape was beginning to be put down. Lucas thought it was a bit much, but a teddy bear did happen to float in front of his eyes and shoot a deadly laser at his mother.

The EMTs lead both him and Hinawa into an ambulance. Hinawa was limping, which made the EMT workers put her into a gurney carefully. She was wheeled over to one ambulance with Lucas walking right next to it. Meanwhile, his father stayed back and seemed to be talking to other fellow co-workers. It already looked to Lucas that he wasn’t going to be coming with them.

One ambulance swallowed the two up and the trunk closed behind them. The sirens flickered on noisily, and just like that, the ambulance began moving. Lucas held onto his mom’s hand, not wanting to let go. It suddenly went from a normal day with a sandwich to a ghost bear with flesh burning lasers. In a way, it was all so scary, and Lucas didn’t want it to happen again. He found internal rescue with his mom’s presence, and his hands in hers. Hinawa was still awake to be there for her son, and she only tightened the grip from there.

They made it to, not a hospital, but the Tazmily Research Center, which surprised Lucas. The trunk opened up once again and more EMTs came to their need. They were both led into the large, tall building fast and without a single work. However, once inside, Hinawa was rolled one way, while Lucas was escorted in the other.

“M-Mom!” Lucas called over to Hinawa, but was dragged around a corner. He didn’t know where they were taking her, but he hoped it was a room where her burn would be taken care of. Meanwhile, a man in professional looking scrubs held Lucas’ wrist gently but firmly.

“Where are we g-going?” Lucas asked timidly. The man looked down at him with sincere eyes, but then looked straight forward without a reply. The blond boy gulped, only expecting the worst. He has never been to his parents’ workplace, and already it seemed intense and basked in seriousness. The building was cold, and the tile of the floor was spotless, along with all the doors and windows he has passed. Next thing he knew, he was put into an empty room with only a hospital bed within it. 2 other medical workers stood inside, waiting. They were clothed in suits that seemed to block any and all germs they would get in contact with.

“Please do as told,” was all the man said, before closing the door behind Lucas. Lucas was scared, no doubt.

“Lay down here, please,” the man on the right asked nicely, patting the bed. Lucas held his arm for comfort and nodded shakily. He hesitantly approached the bed, having a little bit a trust in the men before him. Once on the bed and laid back, the men strapped Lucas down, surprising him.

“H-Hey!” Lucas shook, but didn’t fight back. “Wh-What…”

They didn’t reply and just kept doing what they were doing.

_Why are they doing this?!_ Lucas felt like they were treating him a bit too harshly for this kind of situation. All he had was a burn on his arm… a burn…

Lucas looked over at his arm, only to find that it was completely gone.

_W-What?_ Lucas was in shock as his cerulean eyes expanded.

“Hold still.” One man took out a thin syringe, and held Lucas’ right arm down. The strap already held Lucas down altogether, so it wasn’t so hard to give him the shot regardless. The blond kicked a little in defense, and let out cowardly whimpers. He wanted to make them stop, it was as if they treated him like a quarantined monster.

“Sto- …” Before the boy could say his last fighting words, his eyes rolled back within his head, completely blacking out the world around him.

* * *

  _“Lucas… wake up…”_

_There it is… again… please stop._

_“I can’t, I need you.”_

_What…_

Lucas’ eyes slowly fluttered open. His whole body felt numb, and the only change since the last time he had been awake was the fact that his shoes were removed. He was still strapped onto the bed, instead he was alone, now. Though, he did see people in front of him, but in a separate room watching over him through a window. It was from this that Lucas really did feel quarantined. By the looks of it, it seemed that those men were trying their best to have the least contact with the boy as possible, not even wanting to breathe the same air as him. Along with those guys, he also saw his mother, who looked angry as she spoke to one of the men. Her wound was treated, which relieved Lucas, and she was using crutches.

“What the hell are you guys doing?!” she yelled strictly at the man. The voice seemed to resonate relaxingly in his ears, for he was still more than half-asleep. Lucas could barely keep his eyes opened, but managed to spectate the matter right in front of him.

“It’s best if he stays here,” the man concluded, keeping his voice calm in comparison to Hinawa’s, “he could possibly be infected.”

“Infected, my fucking ass,” Hinawa cursed, “so what? His burn healed on its own- he’s anything but _infected_.”

“Please calm down, professor,”

“I will _not_ fucking calm down knowing you’ll be having my son constantly strapped to a chair like some creature, taking blood samples every 3 hours to see if anything changed.” Hinawa clenched her teeth angrily as her eyes narrowed at the man.

The man looked troubled and guilty. “We could free him, but there’s no possible way he could leave this facility.”

“ _Why_?” Hinawa asked selfishly.

“Your house was the first area that received the overflow of power; your son cannot go home. Where will he go other than here?”

Hinawa looked as if the man’s words canceled out her argument. “...”

“We must keep him here.”

Hinawa lowered her eyes as she let her bangs flow over her face. Through Lucas’ view, she looked defeated and out of things to say.

“I don’t… get to see him that often…” Hinawa sounded completely upset and saddened.

“...Yes, I understand that,” the man sympathized, “but you have been busy.”

“This project has gotten out of hand…” she muttered, “I wish we never started this…”

_…?_ Lucas didn’t quite follow through the whole conversation. He was waking up little by little, but already he could tell that these men already began their heavy blood sampling on him.

“You and professor Flint are the leads in this project, stopping now would be a complete waste of a new discovery.”

“But it doesn’t feel right,” Hinawa replied.

“Ma’am,” a man on the far side called over to Hinawa. “Your son is awake.”

From that, she sparked up and neared the window to see him. Lucas’ eyes were open completely now, but his body laid effortlessly on the bed. He was still strapped, but gave his mother a small smile. Hinawa smiled back half-heartedly, a bit broken that Lucas was involved in this at all. Somberly, she turned back to the man she was formerly talking to.

“...If anything…” she asked him in a low voice. “Could we please move him to a smaller department… far away from this one?” She bit her lip painfully, getting sadder by the second. She looked near tears.

“We can do that.” The man nodded, “Do you plan to visit him?”

“...Not in a while.” She frowned.

Lucas didn’t get to hear the things she whispered, but he could tell that the look on her face meant bad news. He didn’t quite like the situation he was in right now; he couldn’t tell what those men were going to do with him any further. The man and his mother appeared to be talking, still, and in a moment’s notice, they opened the door to Lucas’ portion of the entire room and Hinawa walked in. She closed the door behind her, then limped over to Lucas’ side.

“Mom!” Lucas smiled widely at her presence, his body rebuilding back its former energy. “What’s going on?!” was the first thing he asked.

“That’s…” Hinawa clicked her tongue at herself. “That’s not important right now.” She began to take off the strap that held him down. Lucas felt relieved at the pressure and restriction going away, then when she was finally done, he instinctively hugged her. The mother took a seat on the bed as to put less stress on her leg, and returned the hug back as well. “Lucas,” she spoke as she embraced him, “these men are going to be taking you somewhere else.”

“Can w-we go home?” asked Lucas hopefully. Hinawa shook her head painfully.

“N-No. The area around the house is unsafe.” Somehow, it was hard for her to tell her son this. The feeling of intentionally sending her son further away from her just hurt. “They’ll be taking you to another department; it will be safer than here. They still need to keep you facilitated just in case anything happens.”

“You mean ‘kept as a test subject’?” Lucas was dense at some points, but he wasn’t stupid. “...I-I don’t want to be strapped down all the time. Can you and dad just rent an apartment?”

“We can’t, just-” Hinawa frustrated, “you’re a big boy now, and I’m sure you’re aware that when something can’t happen, it just won’t.”

Lucas embraced his mom tighter. “Will you come and visit me, then? I haven’t seen you or dad in two months.”

Now, Hinawa couldn’t help but lie, “We’ll try, okay sweetie?” She combed her fingers through his hair. “Now, they’re going to take you over to the other place. They’ll keep you safe, I love you.”

Lucas seemed a little upset by the result of the conversation. None of his questions managed to get answered, and he felt like a burden. “...I love you, too.”

Then slowly Hinawa broke from the embrace she didn’t want to end, then signalled for the men to come inside the room. They nodded, and the two usual men came in as she slipped right between them and left first. Lucas felt hopeful that he'd be able to see her more often, now, that even though he'd move to another department only to be tied down again, it would be worth it to see her rather than his homeschool teacher who taught him his whole life, but never connected with him. He felt slightly happier as the two men, still in their full body cover suits, escorted him out of the room, and out of the hospital.

An ambulance awaited Lucas' arrival at the front of the huge company building, where the men sat Lucas down in the back and had the people in the car take him from there. It was a long, lonely ride, but now that Lucas thought about it, his whole life pretty much rolled that way. All he could do was internally shrug it off and wait to arrive at the doors of another company building to take him. All because of a floating teddy bear. Lucas wished he had never bought it, but alas, it's too late for that now.

Like the routine, the people in the ambulance opened the trunk for Lucas to get out. From there, he was taken by the wrist of two other new men inside the building. This time, the building was significantly smaller than the TRC building, but it still held its professional and clean air around him.

As if repeating the same thing over again from earlier that day, he was led to another testing room and back into a hospital bed where he was strapped down, but less tightly than the usual. He found the straps unnecessary; it's not like he would turn into a monster and attack them. But then again, if a teddy bear can float, anything could happen, now. He effortlessly let them situate him and do what they wanted, letting them stab him with yet another syringe. The second one today.

_This is going to suck,_ he thought, slipping into another slumber.

 


	2. Burn Baby, Burn

It's already been two weeks.

From the point Lucas was strapped down at the chair, everything he expected to happen, happened. Completely nothing. The boy started to favor life at home to be way better than this. He never expected to be used as a test subject for people to look after being victimized by his own teddy bear. He still didn't understand most things happening around him, and why he was important in the first place. His burn healed, but his mom's didn't, so what?

_She's probably too old to heal as fast as I do_ , Lucas thought naively. He pouted to himself, pacing around the room. For the first three days he was fed and was stuck to the chair like something dangerous. Now, it was almost as if he knew the men taking care of him felt bad, and stopped strapping him down. Indeed, he was not strapped down and was free to walk, but he still couldn't leave the room. He groaned at the fact that all he could do was sit down, walk, or think while doing either. However, he still had the choice of watching TV, for the men decided to put one in for him because he looked bored to death, which he was regardless if the TV was there or not.

Still, his mother had not visited him, and his hope grew weaker by the day. He figured that if he was in a building that his mother or father was connected to, he'd be able to see them, but no. He missed home, he could at least go outside to his own freedom and maybe his friend Fuel would be able to play for the day. He wasn't really _cool_ or the “best” kind of friend out there, but he was someone social Lucas could spend some time to kill the day with. However, at least here, Lucas didn't have to see his home school teacher.

In the middle of his thoughts, a familiar worker came in with a tray of food and put it on Lucas' bed; instead of leaving, the man decided to have a little chat with Lucas, who came to find out his name was Douglas. He has been Lucas' main caretaker while he was here, and he was quite nice and interesting to talk to in the blond's opinion.

“Bored?” the man asked. Lucas nodded, taking a sip of water from the tray. He just kept drinking, not saying much. It's come to the point where the blond didn't look understanding anymore of what was going around him, but instead, irritated by the situation he was in.

Along with the nodding, Lucas also put in, “Yes, it's boring. Every single day.” He groaned softly, but the man still heard it and could detect Lucas' fuse becoming shorter.

“Well, what would you do when you were at home?”

“Not pace around a single room all day,” Lucas answered, annoyed. His rages weren't really threatening, however.

“Did you have friends and all that?” Douglas felt bad, but still asked him questions hoping it'd entertain the boy in some way.

“Only a guy named Fuel,” he answered, “I didn't go to public school, so I don't know a lot of people. I think it's because we lived far from the town.”

“That's... horrible.” Douglas patted Lucas on shoulder, who was currently eating his lunch. The food wasn't bad at all, and Lucas was thankful for that, at least. “What do you want to be when you grow up, then?”

Lucas shrugged nonchalantly. “I don't know, but my dad keeps encouraging me to do his job and become a lead scientist here in Tazmily.”

“Do you want to do that?”

“...” Lucas didn't look at Douglas, but instead kept munching. He stared blankly at the white wall in front of him. “...I think it's a very interesting job... but not really as much.”

“What did you want to be?”

“If anything, maybe a job taking care of animals,” said the boy, “I find it perfect, especially since there are a lot of animals in the forest, and people have a lot of pets, too.” Lucas took a moment to make a small smile, but not exactly directed at Douglas.

“Ah, I see, that sounds nice.” The man decided to smile, too. From there, the conversation ended, and the two found themselves silent, overall. However, Lucas brought up another topic to talk about.

“H-Hey,” Lucas wanted to choose his words carefully, “how are my parents doing?”

“Oh, they're alright, it seems like they have been doing new things everyday with what they're working,” the man answered genuinely.

“...Do you have any idea _what_ they're doing?” was the main question Lucas wanted to ask. The man grew a bit tense at the question, and Lucas could see it, too.

“I'm not very familiar with what they do in their research, I only work here in the health department.” The man looked straight and away from Lucas' suspicious gaze.

_I know he knows..._ thought the blond, pouting outwardly, his brows furrowing. “What does a research need with the health department?”

“W-Well, for people who get hurt...” the man's eyes scrolled over the wall nervously, “like your mother, and you.”

“But I'm telling you-” and Lucas has been telling the man since a few days ago, “nothing's wrong with me!! Why do you guys keep testing me?!”

The man finally looked back at Lucas and answered immediately, “You're not _normal_.”

“How?!”

Douglas seemed to groan underneath his breath at how Lucas kept persisting and asking so many questions. Now he was the one that looked annoyed, along with Lucas.

_I'm so tired of staying here doing nothing..._

The man didn't bother to answer, and instead, began walking out of the room. “I have to go somewhere, I've been keeping another patient waiting- I must tend to him.” He swished the door open, closed, and locked it without another word. The main thing that made Lucas mad the most was purposely being kept in the dark. All he wanted to know was what his parents were up to and _why_ it kept them away from the house for weeks; he's being left at home alone, he felt he had some sort of right to know of their whereabouts. He just thought it was plain unfair.

All he could do was watch the man leave the room, and walk down the hallway through a thick window that linked the room Lucas was in and the hall. What the blond could do with his day is just repeatedly watch health care workers walk back and forth, but then again, not much people showed up to this part of the building, anyway. The room Lucas was in looked like a regular hospital room, excluding the dividers, and only having the one bed Lucas would sleep in. There was only one door, which led to another room that would normally be filled with computers and at least 2 watching Lucas 24/7 through a thick wide window; which annoyed Lucas. The second window was smaller and revealed a portion of the hallway outside the room.

Taken away by boredom, he began focusing on his food of tray more, gently munching on the same things he has been having. However, his attention was drawn from his food when he heard sounds of distant mumbling coming from the hallways. Automatically, the boy, chewing on a big piece of sandwich, turned his head casually to the side, seeing who was coming up.  

Another health care worker was escorting a hatted raven-haired boy through the hallways, just like they had for Lucas. The blond’s interest piqued as the boy looked desolate and angry being here; as well as thought that the boy was going to be used as a test subject himself. He sympathized, already knowing that the boy might just _be_ like him. Trapped, for who knows how long.

Suddenly, the raven-haired boy turned his sight to the blond, surprising Lucas. He sat with wide cerulean eyes and a crumbed mouth. At the sight, Lucas gingerly waved smally at the boy to acknowledge him. However, he did not expect the other to only glare back, looking at him with death in his bright violet eyes. The blond grimaced at the rude gesture, which lasted only a few seconds before the boy was walked straight past his room. Lucas bit down his lip and looked down; annoyed and even more upset. His sympathy for that boy fled away fast.

He put both of his hands on his head in frustration and anger. At this point, he didn't feel like eating anymore, and took the plate off his one bed and set it right next to the door. From there, he stomped all the way back to his hospital bed, laid down in it, and flipped on the TV. Luckily, it had on some cartoons that Lucas preferred watching, and decided to just kill the day with the episodes, _again_.

Growing used to the daily routine he kept for more than a week, eating, watching TV, bathroom, pacing, and sleeping, he quickly became drowsy from the flashing lights of the television.

* * *

_“Hehe, I hope you're not getting too bored of life at the moment.”_

_I am._

_“At least you have me.”_

_Yeah, but you're just a dream._

_“I guess you could say that.” Afterwards, the voice in Lucas' head started to make sounds, as if crying._

_….Wait, I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean it that way!_

…

_Hello?_

_“I'll always be there for you. Regardless.”_

_Crash! Thud!_

_W-WHAT!?_

Lucas' dream started to fade away fast as his consciousness started rushing back in. He jerked his half upper body up, and looked around the dim room. His afternoon nap took him to nighttime, yet again. It was quiet, as usual.

He blinked a few times, trying to take away the drowsiness from his eyes. A yawn drawled out of his small mouth. His eyes went to the hallway first, then back to the other room that was connected to the one he was in. Strangely to him, that room was empty. For once, no one was watching him.

The blond got up in the majorily dark room, scoping out the area. He walked all the way to the window itself, looking through, only finding blue and green screened computers, and scattered chairs. He tilted his head in confusion; where is everyone? However, the boy just shrugged, and went back to his little bed and laid there, playing with his fingernails.

_CRASH!_

Lucas breathed in sharply as he rose his head in alert this time. What followed after were distant screams, making the boy fearful of what is happening outside this room. He was forced to get out of his bed yet again, only drawing his attention out the small window to the hallway. His stare went to and fro. Nothing in sight.

Another crash was heard, making Lucas’ heart beat fast now. He shook in place, panicking for real. He whimpered a little, then found himself making way for the door, wanting to get out.

He didn’t expect to get out through the door, and thought he would have to break the windows somehow to escape potential danger. To his surprise, it wasn’t. He stood in awe as the large metal door swung open, representing his freedom. With hesitation, he stepped out, then through another door into the hallways he hasn’t touched in what seemed forever.

Lucas knew what he wanted, and all that was in his mind was to escape the building. There were screams, crashes; he only expected the worst. He quickly ran right and tried to make his way out of the building without knowing exactly how to. He went left, right, right again, then another left. He questioned the screams and shouts _still._ Where was it coming from? He felt he was getting closer to the answer as the hallway lights started to appear more cracked open and flickering, and walls burnt off. Some doors were crashed in brutally, as well.

“SOMEONE! PLEASE HELP!” a man cried out. Lucas turned once again to his plea, and found something he wished he hadn’t confronted.

The hallway from that point was completely cut off by the collapsed story from above, and that man Lucas saw was half-buried underneath all the rubble and debris. He had teary, red eyes from what clearly was pain and the suffering of being unable to get out. Lucas ran up to him and looked at him with panic. The man held out a hand to him, to which Lucas took and pulled on strongly. The weight the rubble had on the man’s lower half remained unmoved by Lucas’ strength.

Lucas’ arms shook. “I-I can’t pull you out!” he told him unnervingly, still pulling on him.

“Oh god, please, please…” the man called out desperately. Though, Lucas’ help still did nothing.

“I… c-can’t!” Lucas was growing teary. He had to soon face the fact that he would have to leave the man there in order to save himself. He let go of the man’s arm falteringly.

“PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!!” The man was now crying. “Please…” He clenched his teeth in emotional pain as tears ran down his sweat soaked cheeks. At that moment, more rumbles were heard, particularly by the portion above the both of them. Lucas’ head was drawn upward, only to see cracks growing on the ceiling above. He froze in terror, looking up, then back at the man once again, who was completely aware that the ceiling was going to crash down on them as well.

Lucas switched looks from the man, to the ceiling, then back to the man again. He frightfully took small, fidgety steps backward, shaking his head at the man. Tears swelled up in the blond’s eyes.

“I-I’m sorry...” Lucas told him quietly. The man looked at him, then up again. Lucas knew from there, the man knew he was done for.

He closed his eyes shut, giving up everything. “Just… go!” the man yelled at him, earning a small nod from the blond as the boy blinked away his tears. He stumbled backwards, only to catch himself, and run away from the collapsing ceiling. He turned around a corner, running faster, while in the background he heard that certain ceiling crash.

_I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…_ Lucas repeated in his head as he continued running. He just left that man to die. He couldn’t do anything.

As he kept running, the death rate only increased, along with the temperature. He found corpses of workers stranded in the hallways, burning from fire. Lucas was afraid for his life; he didn’t know how to get out, and the fire that he found to be in this part of the building was killing everyone. He has not found a single person alive and well.

Thankfully, Lucas found the stairwell leading to the bottom floor, and took it. He bounded down the stairs, tripping often over the harsh metal. He stuck carefully to the rails, holding on as he slipped downwards 2 floors below him. When he got to the bottom, he pushed through the heavy door and into more long hallways. They were more messed up than the ones he found on the 3rd floor.

He heard sounds of hope, here. Alarms of the paramedics, police, and firefighters rang in his ears as he desperately ran his way towards the sounds. He suffered minor burn casualties, but they didn’t come off as too painful to him.

_Any exit, please!!_ Lucas begged. This building was coming down slowly from fire, and no matter where he turned, the fire only got _bigger_.

He panted and gasped for air, and his runs slowed down painfully. He held his side, which started to hurt from running so abruptly. Next thing he knew, he found himself using the wall to hold himself up. The gas was entering his lungs, dropping him into a hazy vision on what was around him. He felt like he was getting nowhere, except closer to certain death.

Lucas coughed incessantly, dropping to his knees. He leaned his head on the hot wall, searching for breath as his vision stirred.

“So _here_ you are,” a voice was heard behind him.

The blond turned his head weakly, his bottom half rolling along with it to turn. He saw the boy he had formerly saw early afternoon. His hope arose quickly that the boy would help him get out.

“H-Hah…” Lucas tried to sum up energy to form words. “Help…” he rasped perilously, coughing afterwards.

“Awh~” the raven-haired kid sang, “ish someone _melting_ to death~?” He neared the blond boy casually. Those words were the ones to erase Lucas’ hope completely. He was confused, now, wondering why the boy was there, looking completely fine in the rising temperature. The hatted one wasn’t even sweating.

Once in front of Lucas, the boy looked down at him, faking pity. “Wow, it’s so _hot_ here, huh?” He tilted his head to add to his sarcastic act. He chuckled sadistically.

_He really… won’t save me…_ Lucas had only begun to lose his attention from the boy in front of him as he gradually slipped into unconsciousness. However, the other didn’t let him do so. Lucas wasn’t noticing how the boy above him was growing impatient by the second at how Lucas just laid there doing nothing at all.

“What are you fucking doing?” the boy asked him rudely, nudging Lucas in the face a little with the tip of his shoe, “Are you faking?”

_Not faking…_ Lucas wanted to say, but couldn’t. The touch of the other boy’s shoe kept him partially conscious.

He heard the hatted boy scoff at him. “Wow, you were weaker than I expected.” He narrowed his eyes at him. He only waited a few more moments before demanding, “C’mon, get UP!” He sent a powerful kick at the blond’s face.

Lucas shrieked in pain, already feeling the blood ooze from his nose. He was forced to the floor on his side by the strength of the kick. Now, he was brought back to life through excruciating pain; the kick was more powerful than an average boy’s. He shakily brought his hands and hovered it over his face, where all he could feel was a sting of the century. The consciousness only lasted for so long.

_“Lucas!”_ the voice called to the blond again, _“Don’t let that fucker hurt you! Do something!”_

Lucas felt like it was a dream again, that voice talking to him.

He carefully rolled his eyes open to the hatted boy, whom he saw was readying another blow with a kick.

_“He WILL kill you if you don’t do something!”_

Lucas grimaced, now using his hands and legs to wriggle away from the other boy. This made the hatted one stop in his tracks, as he amusingly watched the blond struggle for all life to get up. Lucas fumbled to keep his balance, but he did. He stood bow-legged, combatting his weight.

“Finally.” The raven-haired boy laughed, closing in the space Lucas managed to make between them.

_“He’s not done yet,” the voice warned, “you have to fight him.”_

_I can’t, I really can’t..._ Lucas replied back in his head. He was swooning left and right.

The hatted boy smirked, now readying a punch in his fighting stance. His violet eyes glowed confidently.

_“Just- FOCUS!”_

Before he could calculate it, the raven-haired boy already threw a punch at Lucas. The blond, however, blocked the blow with a raised arm. Lucas grunted, but the pain was minimal compared to the last hit. He fell back and over by the recoil.

“GHN-” An agonizing noise came out of the hatted one’s mouth. Surprised, Lucas brought his head up weakly to see what had happened.

Right now, the raven-haired boy held the hand he used to punch Lucas, with a grimace. His attention was deftly focused on what became of his hand, which, was growing flakes of…

_Ice…!?_ Lucas was wide-eyed. Before he knew it, the floor he was laying upon grew snowy ice flakes as well. He whimpered, thinking he was going to be swallowed up by the frozen land that just kept on germinating through the hallway. Gradually, he was regaining strength, and was able to breathe through the ice calming the fires around him. He stood up feeling more alive as a blue glow emit from his entire body, gusting the area in cool air.

The blond was confused as he looked from his own body back to the boy in front of him.

“Shit!” the raven-haired boy cursed aloud, “You fucking liar!” He glowered at the blond, who still remained unknowing of what was happening to him. The ice flakes on his hand were slowly disappearing, as a rage of heat exploded through the cold of his hand, and conquered it with fire bursting through his fingers. Still keeping his stare on the blond, he lit up his other hand and threw flickers of fire where the ice laid; it evaporated the ice into thin air, cancelling out both the ice and fire that coexisted there.

The hatted boy was careful where he moved now as he drawn out more fire from within himself to clear a way towards the blond. Once close enough, he launched a fireball from his hand to the boy in front of him. Lucas saw it coming, and managed to dodge it last second. The fireball, instead, crashed into a frozen door Lucas’ power took over, destroying the structure completely. The other boy growled at the miss, and only aimed more fire going his way.

Lucas, on the other hand, didn’t know how to fight back. The frozen wasteland he’s made of a few parts of the hallway were a mere turn of luck. He found himself unable to confront the other, whose power he refused to be surprised by after seeing all the supernatural things that have already happened to him. He ran off in the opposite direction, escaping again.

However, he was unable to when a fireball finally hit him in the back of the head, forcing him face-first into the ground. It was sudden, that he didn’t even have time to engulf in the pain like he did with the boy’s earlier assaults. The fire hit him hard, and surged throughout his whole body that he couldn’t move anymore. Fire clashed with his ice cold body; it felt as if his head imploded on impact. The world that was literally collapsing all around him turned into a black wasteland before he knew it.

...

_“Ness, where are you- what is… this?!”_

_“I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM!”_

_..._

“ _NGH! LET ME GO!”_

“ _YOU’RE GOING CRAZY AGAIN! STOP!!”_

 


	3. Reflections

The smell of fire didn’t go away, even with what seemed like centuries of being around that same smell. It used to be a comforting smell for the young blond, but now it was nothing but danger.

His eyes quivered open from his recent faint, only to be greeted by the comfy, light shade blue of the sky. All of his memories flooded back into his head naturally of what has occurred before he passed out. He had wished it all to have been a dream, but it wasn’t; and it was clear to him when he saw the beautiful morning sky of the wilderness instead of a white ceiling with fixed lighting.

“Hey little guy, you up?” a nice man’s voice asked him.

Lucas groaned a bit, stretching out his arms and legs on the blanket nested underneath him. For a faint, it was a pretty good sleep; he felt alive and better off than he ever has been. He got up bleary, massaging his eyes.

“I-I’m up…” Lucas answered, still haven’t looking towards the voice. He opened his cerulean eyes and aimed it at the black-haired man, who was sitting upon a log, next to a lit fire. At the sight of the warm blaze, the blond suddenly fumbled backwards in fear.

“Woah there!” the man exclaimed, “Afraid of a little fire?”

“Y-Yes…” Lucas admitted silently. The man chuckled.

“Don’t worry, here, you are safe.” He pointed back to the blanket Lucas scooted off of. “I’m Bronson, nice to meet you.” He held out a welcoming hand.

Lucas wasn’t quick to trust anymore, denying the hand candidly. “Oh, and a building full of high tech scientists and doctors weren’t safe enough?” he retorted, even if the man didn’t understand what the heck Lucas was talking about. From another laugh though, the blond knew the man was aware of what had happened.

“They’re not the right kind of people to protect _anyone_ ,” Bronson emphasized matter of factly.

Lucas gulped, not sure of what to say next. Although, he found the calmness in his mind to return closer to the fire, and back on the blanket the man must’ve laid out for him. It took him awhile in their space of silence to realize there was something attached to his head, too, which appeared to be a bandage that wrapped around his head to aide the last wound he got from the fight.

Nonetheless, the blond wanted to know something. “U-Um…” Lucas trailed off, “So where am I, anyways?” He gave a precious look that demanded the answer immediately.

Bronson made a humorous expression. “Well there’s trees.” He looked one way, then down. “And there’s grass…”

Lucas sighed. “I’m being serious…”

“Just shut up,” another voice popped in the middle of their conversation, one that sounded all the more familiar. The raven-haired boy that Lucas fought with appeared into vision as the hatted one trailed around from the back of the blond, towards an open seat on a log on the other side of the fire.

Again, Lucas backed away, looking fearfully at the boy, to which Bronson said, “He won’t hurt you. If he does, he’ll basically die.”

At that, the raven-haired kid shot a glare at Bronson, who only looked back with a little smile. Currently, the boy’s backpack was filled to the brim with something inside of it, which he ended up taking out. Water bottles. He passed one to Bronson who was near him, then got up, annoyed, and headed over to Lucas’ spot with another. The blond trembled with slight worry, but stayed still. He held out his hand carefully as he accepted the water bottle from the boy’s hand. He also didn’t miss the fact that the raven-haired boy himself was wearing a pair of stylish black leather gloves as he did so… along with, strangely enough, a navy blue hoodie and slim beige cargo pants.

“Those gloves have been helpful, huh Ness?” Bronson commented the obvious.

“...Sure are,” Ness replied flatly, eyeing Lucas gingerly. The blond was confused until he had realized that the bottle in his hand had majorily become frozen. He squeaked from surprise and dropped the bottle to the ground.

“Yeah. I’m not giving you anymore until you finish that one,” said the hatted kid. Lucas looked back at him and became annoyed, himself.

The blond groaned. “Why won’t you just shut the heck up? I’ve been confused this whole time and all you’ve been trying to do was kill me. What makes you think I even give a damn?” Those words slipped off Lucas’ tongue that he had to cover his mouth. He never cursed, and was surprised he did even with such a soft word.

All Ness did was exhaled tiredly, as if promising death to the blond on a later date than now.

“Don’t worry, kid,” Bronson assured, “here, take mine. Just make sure to not freeze it or anything.” He passed his water bottle to Lucas, now. Except this time, the water remained in its liquid form. Ness clicked his tongue at the man’s kindness, and drank some water himself. Although it appeared to the other two that the water in Ness’ bottle was boiling from the inside as long as he held it.

“I-I think you made him mad…” Lucas looked away timidly from the raven-haired boy and to Bronson. He gulped down some of the water in the bottle afterwards.

“Nah~ it’s fine.” The older man smiled again. “By the way, what’s your name little one?”

“It’s… Lucas,” the blond answered hesitantly.

Ness scoffed. “More like Luke-ass.”

Lucas fumed a bit as a rising red color appeared on his white cheeks. He could see Ness bite the inside of his cheek, suppressing a laugh, but failing miserably in the end.

“This is why you don’t have friends,” Bronson concluded.

“Don’t need any,” the hatted boy replied quick. Bronson only rolled his eyes. The man picked up the frozen water bottle that was Lucas’ and slipped it into a pack of his own that he slung over his shoulders.

“Well, I think it’s about time I head out of here and back to the other base,” Bronson said, “don’t wanna waste any more time here.”

“O-Oh! Wait!” Lucas got up and called out to the man before he left, “Um, thank you for getting me out of there and taking care of my-” He pointed to his head. “Wound.”

Bronson chuckled. “Don’t thank me, thank that rude kid over there that didn’t even say ‘Bye’ to me.” He pointed at Ness. “Well, see ya!” He off and left without another word from the blond.

 _… What?_ Lucas turned his stare over to Ness, who nonchalantly was sipping on water as he stared deeply into the fire. The blond could tell he overheard, though, by the way his brows were furrowed in irritation. Lucas knew this boy tried to kill him, but he sympathized once being aware that the boy _probably_ took care of him afterwards. The actions didn’t make sense, though.

“H-Hey.” Lucas walked carefully to Ness’ side. “Did you really do that?”

“You were asleep for _two_ days. I was required to do so,” he answered harshly, “don’t get any thoughts that I actually care about someone like you.”

Lucas was strung aback; he wasn’t expecting much, but that was mean.

_Two days…!? I was asleep for that long?_

…

“Why were you required to do so?” Lucas posed another question, trying not to be bothered by how the other answered the first one.

“Because…” Ness trailed off, still not bothering to give any eye attention to the persistent kid.

* * *

  **Two nights ago.**

“What the FUCK was that, Ness?!” asked Wess.

“We don’t _need_ him.” Ness tapped the tip of his shoe on the floor. He kept a serious, unwavering expression.

“The plan was to get him, NOT KILL HIM!” The elderly man pounded a fist on his desk. They were in a small residence located in the suburban areas away from the city. Ness sat in front of the man’s desk in a single chair, and flinched a little at the sudden action.

“He’s not fighting for the right team, he’s a THREAT, not a solution. It was best if we got rid of him then and there to prevent him from ruining everything!” Ness yelled back.

“You killed almost half of the people in that fucking building,” Wess stated.

Ness looked away with a grimace. “...They’re the enemies.”

“But also take into consideration that we’re here to save the _people_ . They work underneath the TRC, sure, but they were _innocent_. They don’t know what’s going on!” Wess sympathized with the boy, as he got up from his seat. He thoughtfully paced back and forth in front of Ness. “And… you killed them.”

Ness clicked his tongue silently with guilt. His eyes narrowed.

“Look, you’re the only one who could help us, Ness. You’ve been with us since day 1. Your psychic powers are excellent… but you need to control your PSI so that it doesn’t alter your overall character.”

“It doesn’t do—”

“ _Yes_ , it _does_ ,” Wess drawled out. Ness was silenced. “Your fire PSI turns you out of control. When you’re surrounded by fire, like that building you burned down, it literally gets to your head.” The hatted boy looked upset. “Now you almost killed the last thing we need to stop the TRC from gaining any more power.”

Ness sighed. “He’s the son to the people that are conducting the damn project, why do we need him?!”

“To _harness_ his power.”

The hatted boy blinked in confusion. “...What? You—didn’t tell me about this.”

“I didn’t, and I probably should’ve,” said Wess regretfully, “but now I’m telling you. What we’re going to do with him next is take away his PSI powers and give them to you.”

“Woah,” Ness sounded a bit pleased at the thought.

“Yes. And I know you’re already aware that the boy is stronger than you. He has the power of two beings inside of him.”

Ness looked downwards. “...Yeah.”

Wess continued. “And we can’t simply channel his power to you because of the heavy power load. That machine back at our base will do the job.”

The boy nodded. “What will we do with him afterwards?”

“...Well, nothing.” Wess shook his head dreadfully. “Taking away his powers... will kill him.”

“So he’ll end up dying anyways?”

“Yes.”

“I’m fine with that.” Ness slouched back on his chair. Wess only sighed at the hatted one’s reaction.

“However.”

“Huh.” Ness’ brows rose. He thought that the talk was done with.

“You’ll be the one to escort him back to the base.”

Ness stood up from his chair and settled one hand on the man’s desk, while he used the other to point a finger at him. “ _NO!_ Our base is fucking far from here!”

“I would appreciate if you’d stem the curse words just a little,” Wess advised, then continued reasoning with the young boy, “okay look, I know it’ll be far and you’ve already done so much for us. But if we have even 5 of our normal members escort the kid, chances are he will freeze all of them and kill them.”

“And you’re saying he doesn’t have a chance to kill me, a _fire_ PSI user?”

“Well.” Wess passed him a little smile. “You’ll definitely stand _more_ of a chance.”

Ness groaned. “And what if I kill him during the trip, huh?” he threatened.

At that moment, Wess pulled out a strange gun from one of his drawers. “Guns don’t kill psychics.” He loaded that one gun with unusual pellets. “But this one does.”

Ness was caught off guard. He spaced back a little. “...T-That’s bullshit,” answered the kid, nervously, “you can’t kill me.”

“If we lose the blond, we lose everything. It wouldn’t matter if you were still alive anyway.” Wess pointed the gun at the hatted boy. “Don’t get me wrong, I care about you, but you are very… very disobedient.”

Ness inched backwards some more on his seat as he lifted an arm to his face in protection. “O-Okay okay! I won’t kill him! Put the thing down already! I’ll take him, alright?!”

Wess let the gun down, still keeping his serious face. However, once he saw the look of fear in Ness’ face, he couldn’t help but laugh humorously at him. The hatted one, still defensive, only growled back.

“Ugh, I swear…” Ness shook his head, sighing. He put a hand to his head. Wess wore an amusing expression as he returned the gun its rightful place in his drawer. “...Wait.”

Wess turned his head back to the boy. “What is it?”

“I can’t touch that blondie, though,” Ness had realized as he reflected back on how his hand nearly froze just from attempting to punch him. “My hand touched him and it nearly froze off. He’s really cold just to be around, too.”

Wess looked stumped for a moment. “Well…” he trailed off, “maybe there’s SOMETHING I could do…”

“Which is?” Ness rose one eyebrow in suspicion.

“Wait right here.” He stifled a laugh, then walked quickly out of the room.

**10 minutes later.**

Ness turned his head around as soon as he heard the man’s steps echo across the wooden floorboard. The man carried a stack of clothing with him, and plopped it on his desk in front of the raven-haired boy.

“Um. What’s this?” Ness asked.

Wess didn’t answer, for he was already digging through the stack and picking out clothes in specific. Ness only stared interestedly as the old man spent vital energy on finding the right things he was searching for. Random clothes were tossed to the side as the man picked and chose what seemed to be a navy blue hoodie, beige cargo pants, and black leather gloves. He pushed the other clothes to the side and shown these three to Ness.

“Well?” Wess asked.

“Well _what_?” Ness asked back, a bit more impatient.

“These’ll protect you from the boy’s cold!” Wess tossed a grin over at him.

“You think a thin-looking hoodie and beige pants will do anything about the blondie’s powers?!” Ness argued seriously, “That kid’s not winter, he’s a _blizzard_.”

“You don’t know a joke when you see one, huh?” Wess commented, earning an insulted look from the raven-haired boy. “Regardless, just keep these on anyways.”

“Why? They’re so _ugly_.” Ness looked disgusted. “I like my striped shirt and shorts better.”

“Your get-up looks generic, Ness. Looks exactly like that blond’s get-up.”

“I’ll admit, he has style at least.” Ness scoffed at the white-haired man, who rolled his eyes.

“Wear it.” Wess pushed the stack on the desk towards Ness.

“No.” Ness pushed it back.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“ _Yes._ ”

 _“NO._ ”

“Okay.” Wess took a breath in. “It’ll AT LEAST keep you warm. JUST WEAR IT and see if it does anything! If it doesn’t, then just take it off!” He pushed the clothes towards the boy one last time.

“Eugh,” Ness groaned, taking the stack this time. “Fine. The quicker I wear these, the faster I can get out of here.” He got up unwillingly and went towards the exit quick.

“Wait, Ness!” Wess called out. Ness lazily stopped in his tracks and turned half-heartedly. He didn’t look pleased. “Where’s the kid right now?”

“He’s outside, hidden between the trees. He’s still out cold. No pun intended.” However, Ness mouth bent into a half-smile as he said it.

Wess stifled a laugh to keep things serious. “Keep him there until he’s fully healed and able to travel. Take care of him until then.”

“Yeah yeah.” Ness was almost out the door when Wess called out to him again.

“OH! One more thing!” The man held a finger up.

“ _What_ now?” Ness held the door open half-way.

“That kid doesn’t trust you.”

“Yeah. I tried killing him, why would he?” Ness smart-assedly said.

“Be _nice_ to him,” the older man ordered.

“Ugh, why?”

“You’ll need to get him to trust you. I doubt he’d go anywhere with you. He’d probably want to go home. Don’t let him.”

“You’re asking way too much of me, now,” Ness told him laboriously.

“Just do it.”

“ _Fine._ ” Ness slammed the door in his face afterwards, and Wess just sat right back in his desk in triumph.

 _Dammit, I don’t want to do this,_ thought Ness. He approached the bathroom in Wess’ house and headed in for changing. He slipped off his hat and shorts. Then, clad in only his plaid boxers and shirt, he inspected the cargo pants and nearly opened all the pockets to see if there was anything inside. There was nothing. From there, he delicately slipped it on and zipped the front, then proceeded to dress into the navy blue hoodie as well. He stared at himself for a good while in the mirror with a face of disconcertion.

 _Whatever._ He packed his original clothes away into his bag, and slipped on the black leather gloves along with his hat, last. He quickly slung his backpack over himself again, and made his way down the stairs and outside of the house. It felt like the middle of nowhere in the dark night, but the hatted boy enjoyed the fresh scent of the trees, along with his favorite season: summer. Despite the warm clothing he had on, no temperature of heat could ever bother him.

Thereupon, he trailed over to the back of the house, and further out to a grove of clean, green trees alike. He carefully stepped over the trees’ overgrown stems in caution of tripping. In the middle of it all was a clear spot of just soft grass where Ness had placed the blond. There, the boy was passed out on top of a big, thick blanket that formerly belonged to the hatted one.

Ness approached the other boy casually and took a seat on the blanket, only to inspect the other closely. The air was cold whenever he went near this person; though the outfit Wess had given him did its job to keep him at least warm. He wondered if he was actually safe just touching the boy overall, now. His face neared that of the blond’s as he kept an expression of interest. Gently and mildly, he placed the back of his gloved hand to the boy’s face.

 _Warm…_ Ness thought, feeling his muscles relax. He now flipped his hand over to caress the boy with his palm.

“Ngh…” the blond clenched his eyelids closed even more than it already was. He shuffled his head, but only just a bit. He was still in deep sleep, not ready to get up any time soon.

Ness quickly drew back his hand at the action, then proceeded to space away. He sat down, not so tired yet even though it was the middle of the night. He looked back at the boy, then at the bandage around his blond head he had wrapped to stop the bleeding earlier on. Since the time he has left him here to the time he had come back, the bruises Ness left on him were completely gone, to his surprise.

 _He heals quick_ , the hatted one thought, deciding to lie down on his back to look up at the starry night. It seemed like there were billions, and the raven-haired boy loved it. Though, the sky wasn’t keeping his attention this time; it was the sleeping boy right next to him. Ness couldn’t help but turn his head to the blond, and stare.

 _So I have to take care of you, huh?_ Ness gave an annoyed look. _You look better asleep._ Some part of him hoped that this boy would stay asleep forever, but another part hoped he would wake up. The power this blond had was beyond him. Ness was jealous, but getting the boy to trust him would make him more powerful in the end.

The violet eyes of Ness illuminated and brightened through the darkness as he sensed the power within the body of the other boy.

 _The power of ice..._ A small trail of smoke escaped Ness’ half-open mouth. _Will be mine._


	4. Or Maybe Not?

**Present Time.**

“I just had to,” Ness concluded. Lucas seemed doubtful, but hopeful at the same time. He decided to let the topic slip.

“Well, thanks…” Lucas trailed off.

Ness made small eye contact with the blond, then went back to the fire again. “No problem.”

…

Silence.

Lucas hated talking through silence, honestly.

“S-So why did you save me, anyways?” asked Lucas, “I thought you wanted to kill me or something.”

“I did…” Wess had told him to be nice to the boy, and so far, the streak had been terrible. He didn’t like talking to Lucas altogether, but forced himself to. “I just-” he made up something that was half true and half a lie, “have anger management problems.”

“Oh,” Lucas bought it partially. He didn’t like Ness at all, either. “Well thanks for getting me out of that mess… I guess.” The blond looked around him at the trees. “I guess I’ll go home, then?” he asked, even though he didn’t know where the both of them were. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Ness lied impatiently. His heart thumped at how he was going to get Lucas to follow him, or, moreover, trust him. He didn’t know how he would, and Wess just said ‘be nice,’ but that wasn't enough help. At all.

“Why am I even here?” Now Lucas was getting down to the vital questions. Ness breathed in and out nervously.

“Um.” Ness bit his lip in front of Lucas. Lucas tilted his head. 

_ Fuck, how do I do this?! _ Ness asked himself frustratingly. He’d have to get creative, so creative it’d probably sound incredibly stupid and irrelevant in Lucas’ eyes.

“Those scientists were going to use you,” said the hatted one, “I was told to get you out of there.”

“Then why’d you try to kill me?” Lucas gave Ness a judgemental look. “I don’t really call that saving me.”

“Like I  _ said _ …” Ness bit down his teeth, “anger management…”

“And you didn’t take classes for those, huh?” Lucas insulted unknowingly.

Ness blew out a puff of smoke from his mouth at the blond boy. Lucas backed away, trying to fan away the smoke from his face as he coughed. Ness smirked at the other. However, at the reaction, the grass beneath Lucas’ feet turned to pure ice. It did not germinate the area, but only remained in close range of the blond. Ness got up from the log and backed off a bit.

“Ack!” Lucas was scratching his eyes. “Why did you do that?!”

“You insulted me,” Ness stated straightforwardly, scoffing.

By that time, the smoke had cleared up. Lucas furrowed his brows a little. “No, I didn’t! Besides, you were mean to me first.”

“Oh, really?” Ness said sarcastically. “ _ How _ ? Humor me, will you.”

Lucas only frowned. “You know how.”

“Awh, did that little kick hurt?” Ness faked a little sad face towards the blond. “Or did the little fireball hurt more?”

Lucas was seething, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to get away from this boy, who was obviously unfriendly, and won’t be nice to him any time soon. Again, he was only burdened by the thought of still not knowing anything. All he knew was that this boy has some sort of fire magic and he  _ killed  _ all those people burning in the building. Lucas was scared, but he knew Ness couldn’t kill him now. 

There was something wrong with Lucas; everything’s been cold lately, too cold. Regardless, he didn’t care, he was too upset with the raven-haired boy at the moment that he started walking off in one direction.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ness called over. Lucas still kept walking.

“Anywhere far from you!” Lucas yelled back. Currently, he hugged himself, clearly cold. Whenever he exhaled, white frosty breaths would escape his mouth even though the weather was high in temperature.

Ness groaned, running up to the boy and walking right next to him. “Hey, stop walking!”

“ _ No,”  _ Lucas spat, rolling his eyes so that the other noticed, “go away.”

“ERGH!” Ness stopped momentarily, throwing his hands up. “You don’t listen!”

“And you behave like a  _ kid _ ,” Lucas added, not even turning around, “seriously, you get mad over every single thing I do, and I never even did anything to you. I needed help, and you kicked me while I was down in a BURNING building.” Now the blond stopped, then turned. “You’re just- not a good person for me to be around. Bye.” He turned again, and still headed off. Lucas always had a passive aggressive anger trait. 

From there, Lucas didn’t hear anything else from the hatted one.

_ Serves him right _ , Lucas thought, smirking to himself. He didn’t want to turn back, nor did he care. He was just walking forward through a collection of trees.

_ Step step step. _

The noise caught Lucas off guard, and he had thought he was far from the raven-haired boy by now. He was mistaken when a gloved hand grabbed at his wrist and flung him against a tree harshly.

“Ow!” Lucas pained, shutting his eyes on impact, only opening them to see a very angry Ness in front of him. The blond trembled in sudden fear that he was going to be beaten by the boy another time. 

Ness pinned Lucas’ arms above him to the tree, and stomped on the other boy’s foot powerfully. Lucas whimpered another time as he felt Ness’ red sneaker hit his own yellow ones.

“I will fucking  _ burn _ you.” Ness stared daggers at Lucas with his brilliant eyes. He tightened his hand grip around the blond’s naked wrists, increasing the fiery heat to his gloved hands. The heat traveled through the leather and onto Lucas’ satin-like skin. The blond mewled as he writhed around. It felt like touching a scorching pan.

“Y-You! Can’t kill me…!” Lucas griped at him.

“I don’t  _ care _ . You piss me off.” Ness took the thumb of his other hand, and pressed it specifically to one of Lucas’ cheeks, where he also casted upon a scorched-like feeling to the blond. Lucas cried aloud more. In his moment of peril, once again, his icey powers leaked out inadvertently as the slightly shorter boy delivered a frosty kick to Ness’ chest.

The raven-haired boy recoiled in pain as he watched the blond run off as fast as he could. He heated his chest to kill off the cold, and pursued after Lucas.

Lucas didn’t run on a regular basis, but he felt as if this was the fastest he ever went. The trees were a problem, and every step he took left the ground ice-covered. His only hope was to a lonely, quiet house that came into view from the back. He made his way around the house, and to the front door, which was strangely unlocked. Nonetheless, he went in, locked the door, and headed as deep as he could into the wood-floored house.

“HELP! HELP!” Lucas bursted out, still intruding on a house he had no idea belonged to, “PLEASE HELP! A KID WITH FIRE IS GOING TO KILL ME!”

_ “YOU BETTER OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR!”  _ Ness commanded furiously as he banged loudly on the wooden entrance.

“What in the world?!” Wess came out of his study, only to find a slightly burnt-faced blond run past him. Lucas saw the man, then ran back to him.

Lucas hoped in all the world that this man was nice. He was out a breath at the moment, though. “B-Boy…!” Panting. “Going to kill me…!”

“Wha- oh.” Wess face palmed, taking the little boy’s hand. He sighed profoundly. “Come with me, he doesn’t hurt.” 

Lucas whimpered, not wanting to go back to Ness, but found this man trusting as a first impression. He weakly nodded, letting the elder man lead him back downstairs and to the front door that was being heavily banged upon.

_ “I WILL RIP YOUR LIMBS APART AND THEN ROAST IT ON A FIRE—” _

Wess opened the door to a reddened Ness. When boy saw the man, he automatically recomposed himself. “O-Oh… hi.”

“Hi.” Wess faked a grin, which turned immediately in a frown right after. “Come inside and sit down. We need to talk.  _ Again _ .”

Ness pursed his lips together and went in without passing Lucas another look. It was unusual for Lucas to see the hatted kid disappointed rather than angry. He felt safe with this white-haired man.

Wess led Lucas to the living room where Ness was already sitting, and had the blond sit close to him rather than to the fire-enraged boy. The elder stayed silent on purpose, irritably staring down Ness, who flipped his bill forwards over his eyes, rather than to the side like usual. Lucas, by now, already assumed this man knew the boy already.

Wess tended to Lucas, first. “Hello, um,” 

“It’s Lucas,” the blond replied.

“Lucas.” Wess nodded, smiling nicely. Lucas felt a bit better by that. “I’m going to have a talk with my grandson, please excuse us.”

_ Grandson…? _ Lucas thought as he nodded, letting the two walk out of the living room towards the kitchen where their voices would practically be inaudible to him. 

Wess pinched at Ness’ cheek, hard, as partial punishment.

“Why do you keep fucking up?” Wess asked directly.

Ness looked distressed. “I don’t know, I’m sorry,” he went right to the apology. Although, he meant it. It was only now that the hatted boy thought that he should’ve just said ‘sorry’ to Lucas instead of chase him down and scorch his wrists and face.

“I told you to be nice. How hard is that?”

A sigh escaped Ness’ mouth.

Wess took a breath in with closed eyes, and let it out relaxedly in an attempt to calm down. “You know you’re not this mean in reality. And you know how much you’re actually putting on the line if you don’t get that boy’s powers.”

Ness’ eyes started to redden suddenly, but he quickly blinked them away. “I just… have such a hard time…” 

“...It’s okay, alright?” Wess held out an arm for Ness, which he placed over the boy’s shoulders to comfort him. “...I understand.” The man couldn’t find the will to get mad at him; Ness has just been an unfortunate victim his whole life. A victim of things he couldn’t bear to think about repeatedly; and Wess was the one responsible.

Ness shook under the man’s one-armed embrace, and slowly let go of him. He caught his uneven breaths and nodded at the man, as if saying, ‘I’m alright, now.’

“Listen,” Wess advised, “I’ll help you only this once. The rest is up to you, you got that?” Ness nodded again. “Good. Now I’m going out there and I’m going to fix everything. You  _ will _ build off of what I say, and apologize to him at the end.”

Thereupon, Wess exited the kitchen first and headed back to the living room with Ness following suit. Lucas looked back up at the two, interest piqued.

“Lucas,” the man addressed, “I’m terribly sorry for my grandson’s behavior.”

Lucas blinked a few times as he switched his gaze over to Ness, who looked at him back with remorse.

Wess continued. “He’s been receiving treatment for his autism. He’s been monitored for about a year and a half now ever since he has started seeing weird ‘flames’ everywhere.”

Ness narrowed his eyes at the old man for the ‘autism’ lie. He didn't even look/act autistic, he was just a douche. 

“Flames?” Lucas questioned, “Fire?” 

“Yes, flames, fire, but they aren’t real, though my grandson has been telling me they are. The doctors say he has pyrophobia,” Wess’ lies were through the roof, but Lucas bought it all. Ness just didn’t speak in the time being, afraid he might spit out another angry-induced line.

However, the blond stood up for Ness, even through the lie. “But, sir…” Lucas bit the inside of his mouth for an instant. “The fire is real.”

“Has my grandson rubbed of on you?” Wess smiled. “There’s no such thing—flames simply cannot come out of nowhere.”

“Wait—yes it can! He burned me!” Lucas insisted, “I have proof, too!” The blond was quick to point to his face that Ness scorched.

“...There’s nothing there?” Wess sounded confused.

“Yes there is! Ness only burnt me a few minutes ago!” Lucas exclaimed, touching and feeling his cheek. However, all he felt was his own skin. Then he realized Ness also left burn marks on his wrists, which he held out to the two also. “My wrists were also—”

His wrists looked as if Ness had never touched them. Lucas held his wrists close to his eyes, nearly freaking out. He looked to and fro between both arms, then got one last idea. His bandage on the back of his head. Lucas thought there was no way a blow from a fireball could’ve been healed within a mere 2 days. Swiftly, he began unraveling the bandage tight to his head, surprising everyone. 

At that point, even Ness was surprised and worried, himself. “Lucas don’t—you’re still healing!”

In spite of that, Lucas already took off the bandage completely, and turned the back of his head to face the other two.

“Look!” Lucas told them.

...

“Oh my god…” the words languidly slipped from Ness’ mouth, “the wound… it’s… gone.”

“W- ...What?” Lucas slowly inched a hand from his neck to the back of his head. 

“Were you guys playing some sort of hospital game?” Wess asked innocently, posing as an adult who just didn’t understand kids these days.

“What?  _ No… _ ” Lucas made a small frown as he held onto his unwrapped bandage.

_ Now I’m starting to get confused… _ Lucas thought,  _ there was no way something that bad could’ve healed by now! And the burns Ness gave me should’ve still been here!  _ Now the blond, himself, thought he was losing it as well.  _ Do I have autism too, or something? _

Lucas only continued trying to convince the man of his own lie. “I swear I got burned by Ness.”

_ “And I don’t doubt it…”  _ Wess carefully whispered to Ness discreetly. Then, he went back to Lucas. “Are you sure you’re not pyrophobic, yourself?”

“Oh I know I am,” Lucas said surely, eyeing Ness in the process. The raven-haired boy puffed up a single cheek at that. “But the fires are  _ real _ .”

Wess nudged Ness on the side in front of Lucas. “Don’t be getting other kids to think like you!”

“I’m telling you, he’s not wrong at all!” Lucas yelled, now.

“...” Ness looked into Lucas’ eyes. “He’s right, the fire is all a fake. I’m just crazy,” the boy faked a sorrowful tone of voice.

“But it—”

Wess interrupted Lucas with intention to quiet him down from there on, “That’s enough playing around, Lucas. Do not ever listen to what this boy says.”

Lucas didn’t have a problem with that, but the mere ignorance of the old man was really bothering him. Nonetheless, he gave up, and let the old man continue.

“Now you, Lucas, go home,” Wess commanded strongly.

“I don’t even know where I am and why!” Lucas complained, “Your grandson burned down a whole building and was throwing fireballs at me!” 

“Wow, now  _ that’s  _ an extreme case of pyrophobia.” Wess nodded, only earning a tired groan from Lucas. “Well, I’m sure Ness knows where you live and will take you home, right, Ness?” The white-haired man looked at the raven-haired boy with intention. 

“Take h-him home?” Ness asked, confused.

“Yes,  _ home, _ ” Wess kept emphasizing. Ness took a few seconds to realize, then got the idea.

“Oh, yeah I could that,” Ness agreed. Lucas merely watched them as they chatted. 

“Good.” Wess now walked over to Lucas’ side and put a hand on his shoulder. The blond shifted his eyesight to the man, who looked down at him. “Now Lucas, he’ll take you home, got it?”

“He also  _ said _ he didn’t know where we are,” Lucas pointed out, “seriously, what the heck’s going on?!”

“My grandson’s just an idiot, okay? Let’s leave it at that. Either you remain lost or you go with him.”

Lucas furrowed his eyebrows. Wess shrugged.

_ I’m not stupid…  _  Lucas said to himself. However, the old man he didn’t even know the name of brought up a good point. It’s not like Ness knows where he lives, but he didn’t want to be stuck here, either. This house seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, nor is he technically going ‘home,’ since his house was, well, practically taken away as a criminal site. He also did not want to go back to any other facility and be kept there.

And it's not like his parents are even looking for him.

“...Alright,” Lucas agreed, earning surprised looks from the other two. The blond by now was tired of standing around fighting words with the old man, and was already heading out of the living room silently. The two others watched him trail out of the house, and slam the door in the process.

“Yeesh, he’s pretty unfriendly, huh?” Wess looked over at Ness, which looked at him back with the same kind of expression. “At least we got him going the right way, now.”

“Yep.” Ness half-smiled. He was relieved that all the mess-ups he has made with the icy boy has all been resolved and pushed back on the correct route. He didn’t quite like the farfetched lie of being seen as ‘autistic’ and a ‘pyrophobic’ kid, but it’d cover up for whatever slips his mouth from now on. Wess did a pretty good job.

“Well, I’ll leave you guys to it,” Wess concluded, walking Ness from the living room to the front door, “remember, take everything into consideration, now. It’s your last chance.”

Ness nodded, then opened the entrance and stepped outside. He looked back at Wess one more time, and unmistakably gave him a smile. The white-haired man gave him one back with a small wave of his hand. From there, Ness closed the door, then ran up to the blond who was staring out into the thickets of the perpetuous amounts of trees.

The hatted boy silently crept up behind him, then to the blond’s side. He stared at the green trees with him as the sun spilt its bright rays upon the endless forest. A sigh escaped the mouth of the blond as the boy let his head hang down. This all turned from confusing to just stressful to Lucas.

“Hey, um. Lucas.” Ness brought his violet gaze to the blond’s cerulean ones. 

“Yeah?” The blond didn’t spare a look at the hatted boy, and just kept looking forward.

“Sorry. About everything.”

Lucas couldn’t really believe what he just heard coming out of the fire-boy’s mouth, but that caught his attention. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t have known you were autistic, anyways.”

Ness sighed, but only at the dumb lie. “Yeah, I have trouble talking to people ‘n stuff.”

“Is that why you don’t have friends?”

_ No, I just don’t have any, _ was what Ness wanted to say, but he was forced to say, “Yes.”

“That’s horrible…” Lucas empathized, “but I understand that it’s hard for you. I won’t take those things you say to me to heart, again.”

Ness felt stupid, having to live by the lie. “Alright. Glad we got that settled.”

This earned a little half-smile from the blond, surprising the hatted boy. Ness bit the inside of his cheek, not wanting to continue the conversation any further than what was becoming of it right now.

“...So,” Ness presented, “I’ll take you home, now, alright?”

Lucas nodded as he closed in the space between him and the fire-boy. The natural cold air Lucas emitted sent small shivers down Ness’ back.


	5. All It Takes is Patience

The day went by gradually, only to be filled majorily with feet hitting grass and dried dirt. Lucas sometimes talked to the presumed ‘autistic’ boy that was leading him home, but he couldn’t manage to keep up a conversation with him. He even went as far to ask things such as, ‘What’s your favorite color?’ or ‘What are your favorite hobbies?’ All he got were plain, candid answers. Already he could tell that Ness just didn’t want to talk with him. At all.

At least he wasn’t completely bored. If Lucas couldn’t talk, he could just skip around over obstacles to entertain himself. In the end, he found himself walking backwards sometimes, taking long jumps over rock piles, and spinning around. Even though it was silly, Lucas noticed how Ness didn’t even spare the blond a second look. He just walked so plainly, so boringly. Lucas felt adventure flowing through his veins, while Ness did not. 

However, Lucas stopped all he was doing when he heard Ness sigh irritatingly. The hatted one stopped in his tracks, causing Lucas to do the same.

“Hey, twinkle toes,” Ness addressed suddenly, and strictly.

“U-Um, yeah?” Lucas clumsily turned to the boy, ignoring the ‘twinkle toe’ comment. 

“Stop screwing around.” 

“...” Lucas shuffled his legs a little bit, looking down and away from the hatted boy’s stare. “Okay. Sorry, I was just bored.”

Ness responded with only his continuation of walking forward through the endless trees. He bluntly ignored Lucas’ apology. The blond just stood there, feeling a bar of restriction lowering down upon him. He trailed silently behind Ness.

…

Again, Lucas heard another irritating sound from the hatted boy. Ness stopped again, and turned right around to face the blond. He made an audible groan at the sight of the other kid that nearly bumped into him from behind.

“Ugh, will you stop getting so close to me, too?!” the way Ness said it made it seem like Lucas’ annoyances were never ending, which they were to the raven-haired kid.

“But why?” Lucas asked innocently. He had a good gist of the answer, but still asked anyway for the sake of boredom. At this point, he would want to talk about anything. Anything at all.

“You’re too cold, dammit,” Ness admitted, “it hurts me.”

“O-Oh!” Lucas backed away. “...Sorry again, I didn’t know.”

Ness clicked his tongue, facing the right of way again, and walking. Lucas decided to walk by his side, but with a large gap in between them.

“How does it hurt so much, though?” Lucas decided to ask.

“If you haven’t noticed the obvious, you’re basically an ice user and I’m a fire user,” Ness explained.

“...I noticed.” Lucas pursed his lips. “But  _ how _ ?”

“We aren’t normal, and I don’t know how. We were just born with it, I guess.”

“Oh.”

“So in our best of the situation, we don’t fucking come near each other, got it?” Ness demanded. 

Lucas nodded hesitantly. “Alright.”

_ Geez, _ Lucas thought to himself,  _ this guy’s no fun at all.  _

Ness rolled his eyes as the final verdict, and continued on at his own pace, which would be rather fast. Lucas didn’t think he’d get tired so easily, but for some reason, he felt that his home, or Tazmily would at least be closer than expected, if they were even in Tazmily still. The blond didn’t own a watch, but the sun was slowly going down, and he felt like they have been walking for hours on end. Not to mention, he was growing a bit famished.

Lucas panted softly, which went unnoticed by the fire-induced boy next to him. At this point, he didn’t want to complain so as to stay on Ness’ good side. The blond himself wondered if the hatted boy was hungry or thirsty, too. Lucas’ cerulean eyes trailed over to Ness’ backpack, whom he held so close to him. He wondered what the heck the raven-haired kid put in there; moreover, he wondered if he had snacks on him.

“How far is my home?” asked the blond, getting a bit antsy.

“Pretty far,” answered Ness in that curt tone of his, “it might take a few days, to be honest.”

“A… few days?!” Lucas exclaimed, “The building shouldn’t have been  _ that _ far from my house!”

Whenever Lucas got even the slightest of suspicion, it annoyed Ness. 

"Well." The raven-haired kid bite his teeth down. "We don't have a car, and we're taking the forest as detour."

Lucas tilted his head as he stared at Ness, clearly not buying it, but yet, accepting it anyway. "Eh, okay, makes sense I guess."

"..." Ness didn't reply. 

"I find it weird that you even know where I live." Lucas tossed a rosen eyebrow at Ness. "You a stalker?" He let a little smile slip.

Ness grunted. 

"I'm just kidding, sorry." Lucas still smiled a little at Ness.

"Yeah, yeah, shut up," was how Ness replied. He wasn't as easily angered anymore, for he was drawn to his goals of keeping things together, and the issue at hand. He must get this kid's untapped power, even if that means he had to be a totally different person. 

_ Grumble grumble... _

Ness’ gaze switched over from the front of him, towards the blond boy. "What the fuck was that?" He looked down towards Lucas' belly. 

"I'm getting hungry..." Lucas passed him a nervous smile, hovering a hand over his stomach. 

"Jesus, you're so high maintenance!" Ness told Lucas, "God!"

"I can't help that-"

"You're always talking, moving around, and asking stupid questions. Who the hell cares what my favorite color is?" Ness vented out his anger through words, and luckily not actions.

"I just wanted to talk about something!" Lucas whined quietly afterwards. "And I'm hungry because I haven't eaten for a long time! You  _ said _ I was out cold for two days!"

Ness face palmed. "...Oh, right. My bad." He furrowed his brows, looking more irritated at himself than at Lucas.

Lucas had a bunch of comebacks ready, but shoved them back into his head when he saw that Ness agreed for once. It was weird, watching Ness take off his backpack and taking out a new bag of Lays chips and tossing it to Lucas, who fumbled to catch it. The blond blinked at it, then stared, shocked, at Ness.

“..What?” Ness asked, “Eat it already.”

Lucas was not prepared for that random act of kindness. “U-Uh oh okay. Thank you.”

“I think we should just stop here, I’m getting tired,” Ness conceded, “I hate walking.”

Lucas agreed almost immediately. He ripped open the bag of chips and had already begun digging his fingers inside, and munching on the delicious salt flavored potatoes. He found himself following the hatted boy to a small section of trees and rocks, where he comfortably sat opposite of Ness, on top of a large rock jutting out from the soil. Ness sat himself against another rock, lying his back against it as he let his body meld comfortably upon the grass.

Ness let out a breath of air that was followed by a gray smoke, clearly a bit exhausted in Lucas’ eyes. The blond only continued to eat and chew on multiple chips at a time. Ness rested his hands upon his torso, eyeing the blond and actually giving him attention.

“You like Lays?” Ness asked.

Lucas gulped down the mouthful he was chewing on. “Y-Yeah, they’re my favorite brand.”

“Oh.” Ness looked at Lucas with a look of anything but disappointment, which was a step up from how displeasing Ness had been staring down Lucas with. “They’re my favorite, too.”

“Really?” Lucas grinned a little. “Cool.”

Ness made the smallest of half-smiles, then looked away from the blond again, and ignored him from that point on. However, Lucas wouldn’t let him do that again.

“Want some?” Lucas asked curiously, holding out the bag, “It’s a big bag.”

Ness did an awkward double-take, then nodded. “Sure.”

With that, Lucas hopped down from the large rock he sat upon, then went over to Ness’ right side. He didn’t rest too close to him, and just laid his back against the same rock in the position Ness was in. Lucas reached over with the bag, and handed it cautiously to the raven-haired kid. Ness took it with ease, and delicately widened the chip bag a bit more than Lucas had. He slipped off the black leather glove from his right hand, and stuck it inside, pulling out a generous amount of chips. From there, he scooted over closer to Lucas, and gave the bag back.

Crunches of delicious chips and sips of water filled the air around them, as they slowly became comfortable with their resting positions. Over time, they found themselves passing the bag to and back from each other, enjoying the salty taste. However, as Ness passed over the chip bag one last time, Lucas accidentally made contact with Ness’ naked hand, sending the hatted boy to recoil in sharp pain.

“OOPS!” Lucas put the bag down. “I’m so sorry!” He got up from his spot and neared Ness, wanting to help him.

“I told you not to fucking touch me!” Ness suddenly berated. Just like 2 nights before, his right hand grew icy flakes. It hurt like hell to him, as if experiencing a new type of frostbite. When he noticed Lucas getting closer, he also immediately told him, “Don’t come near me!”

Lucas froze in his position and backed away. “S-Sorry!”

“Augh…” Ness groaned, holding his frosted hand. He replaced the leather glove over it, and gradually heated that one hand up again, restoring himself back to normal.

“How come it only hurts you?” Lucas frowned, feeling very guilty at how Ness had to be the one to protect himself.

“Simple,” Ness said, “I can  _ control  _ myself.” The last part came out rather rudely.

Lucas felt like he has apologized a million times, but has still not atoned for his actions. “Sorry… I don’t know how to, I didn’t even know I had the ability of—ice or something.”

“How do you  _ not _ know?” asked the hatted kid as he passed a pathetic look at him, “Did you just only find out that first time we met?”

“...Yeah…” Lucas admitted, “I still don’t understand.”

“ _ Wow, _ ” Ness distressed.

“...Can you teach me how to use it?” Lucas asked peculiarly. That seemed to hit at Ness’ defensive walls. Despite that Ness was a powerful PSI fire user, if Lucas were to learn, he’d become as dangerous as he. Ness couldn’t afford to have the blond know how to use his powers against him, once he learns that he was indeed, the bad guy in the situation; that he was only leading Lucas down the path of death, not home.

“It’s pretty hard, you don’t just learn from another person how to do it,” Ness half lied, “if you really wanna control it, figure it out yourself.”

Lucas’ hopes went down the drain, as his attention went from Ness, then over to himself. He studied his hands carefully and held them out in front of him, then balled them both into fists. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Ness only sat back, staring at him with interest and dissatisfaction. He felt that telling Lucas to ‘figure it out yourself,’ would be a bad idea if he really did manage to pull it off.

The blond cringed in place, thinking deeply. 

_ Ice cream...  _ Lucas thought of all the cold things he could, _ sundaes… McFlurries…!! _

The blond felt something within his body erupt, as his eyes tore open, and his head held high. He felt the power… the power of sweet cravings.

As soon as his over exaggerated act ended, all he could hear was a loud snort come out from Ness, who laughed recklessly at Lucas’ failure to use his ice PSI. Lucas examined his hands and body, not finding any such ice power emitting from him. He blushed a powerful red, looking away from the hatted boy.

“HahahaHAH!” Ness held his side; his mad laughter started to make his chest hurt. He couldn’t even speak a straight sentence without a gasp for air. “You looked *gasp* so s-stupid—HAHAAHAH!” 

Lucas turned to face Ness with that red tint of his. “I-I was just trying to use my powers…!”

“Wha- what did you do?!” Ness’ laughs began reducing to weak chuckles. “Think about cold things?!”

Lucas bit down his lip in embarrassment at how spot on the hatted boy was. “...Maybe…” he admitted, making a little smile in the end. He felt stupid for a moment, but also enjoyed Ness’ laughter for who knows why. “I thought about ice cream, though…”

That seemed to make Ness laugh even more.

“Oh god!” Ness exclaimed, “I’m growing a-abs!” He rolled over on his side, seeking air. Lucas’ smile turned into a grin from that. The blond didn’t say anything else, as he found himself giggling a little just from Ness’ contagious laughter. He waited a few moments to let the hatted boy have his once in a lifetime laugh to die down.

Afterwards, all Ness could do was pant. He remained lying down on the grass as his eyes became teary from all the chuckles. He blinked back the water, then finally got up, and went over to Lucas.

“Man!” Ness smiled at the blond. “You’re nowhere  _ near _ getting your powers to work!”

Lucas smiled shyly at Ness as he grew fond of the boy’s happy nature. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out…” he trailed off.

“As if!” Ness pat Lucas on the back; the blond sweetly accepted it. However, Ness quickly pulled back his hand, and as soon as he did, Lucas backed away as well. The two’s attention went to Ness’ naked hand, which seemed to be completely fine.

Lucas deduced, “So I guess it won’t hurt to touch through clothes then, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Ness nodded weakly. “But you were still a bit chilly towards my hand.”

“What do you mean?” Lucas needed a better idea.

“When I touched you on the back, it felt like touching a block of ice,” Ness clarified, “this is starting to become annoying.” He went back to the rock and picked up the black glove he had left on the ground there, and slipped it on.

“Yeah, same…” Lucas agreed, “I’ll try to control it as soon as I can.”

That seemed to have made Ness revert to his usual strict self once again. “Don’t sweat it, just leave it alone for now. It’d be easier just figuring it out when you get back home or back to your parents.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Lucas replied.

“For now, let’s just keep walkin’,” Ness told him, pointing behind himself with his thumb. Lucas looked a bit hesitant.

“Are you sure?” The blond gestured towards the sky. “It looks like it’s gonna get darker, soon.”

Ness looked up and inspected the dim sky through the trees. He was sure, yet, unsure. The spot they were eating at seemed like a good spot to just stay at for the night, anyway.

“Meh, I guess,” Ness conceded indirectly. “Fine, we could just chill out and sleep here for the rest of the time.”

“ _ Yesssss! _ ” Lucas cheered to himself out loud, getting a strange reaction from the other boy. Ness merely ignored it, glad that they wouldn’t have to walk any further, either. Walking sucked.

So forth, Ness went back to the rock they had leaned upon, and dropped his backpack to the ground. There, he zipped open the biggest pocket and pulled out a thick, blue, rolled up blanket; the same one Lucas had been sleeping on. The blond looked curiously at it, and couldn’t help but smile sheepishly at the sight of it.

Ness proceeded to unravel the blanket, and spread it across the grass in its full form. The blanket was thick enough to comfortably lie upon, especially since there was grass beneath it. Lucas thought for a split second that Ness had a good taste in blankets.

“We’re sleeping right here,” Ness concluded, slipping off his red sneakers and putting them close to the end he would sleep on. From there, he trotted onto the blanket in his white socks and sat upon it. He then gave his attention to Lucas, who looked like he needed permission.

“A-Are we gonna share it?” Lucas asked nervously. 

Ness gave him a look of sarcasm as he pointed out the large area that the blanket covered. “There’s no  _ way _ you could fit on this thing, so no. Sleep somewhere else.”

“O-Okay.” Lucas looked down in a jittery disappointment, as he really did space away from the hatted kid, who didn’t really mean what he just said.

“Dude.” Ness facepalmed. Lucas looked back to him. “I was kidding.”

Lucas blushed again, but the darkening area concealed it. He nodded awkwardly as he walked around the blanket to the other side Ness wasn’t on. He followed suit and took off his shoes as well before sitting down. The two weren’t too tired to end the night quite yet, and sat criss-crossed, facing each other. They both saw the tiredness in each other’s eyes, as Lucas was the one to give in first to an early slumber. The blond fell back on his side, looking up to the raven-haired boy as he lied down. After Ness saw that Lucas laid down, he did, as well.

The two boys, being a good distance away from each other as the blanket would allow, rested on their sides facing each other. They didn’t say anything at all as the dark slowly consumed their ever beings. Lucas was beat, but Ness still had energy left over. He kept those violet eyes open no problem, while Lucas slowly had his eyes flutter shut.

“Night, Ness…” Lucas drawled out, with a small smile on his face. He took a recap on everything that’s happened, and started to find it rather exciting and cool to have weird powers and weird things happen overall. He also thought that maybe he  _ could  _ somehow get Ness to be his friend. At this point, the possibilities were endless. Most of all, the blanket felt so comfortable. He didn’t find it hard to drift to sleep.

Ness hesitated heavily. “...Night, Luke.”

Lucas, with his eyes still closed, giggled. “My mom calls me that.”

“Really?” Ness softly spoke, “I just found ‘Lucas’ as a whole to be a waste of breath.”

The drowsy blond still giggled, not replying anything after that. His euphoria right now just seemed to be the treat of getting to sleep. His legs were tired and his feet were sore. This was the best feeling.

Ness only watched Lucas as he fell asleep. The raven-haired kid wasn’t so used to sleeping this early, and could only close his eyelids at most, and think.

* * *

Half an hour had passed, and Ness still just lied there, restless.

“Ngh…” Lucas shuffled about gently. The arms that laid carelessly at his sides were now brought around him in a self embrace. The blond quivered heavily, as a frosty air seeped out of his mouth and nasal cavity. His legs huddled in closer to his torso area. He was freezing cold in the middle of his slumber, and Ness couldn’t help but notice this.

“Are you cold?” Ness whispered at the blond to test his consciousness. Lucas didn’t reply in the slightest; he was still asleep. This answered the raven-haired boy’s questions. Though, this confused Ness, especially since that it was a summer night; the air was warm. Everything was either warm or hot. Then again, Ness could care less about Lucas’ condition. He rolled over on his other side and faced his back to the freezing blond.

He still fought in attempt to sleep everything off as a whole. Although, it was cut off by small whimpers that started to escape the other boy’s mouth. Ness rolled his body over halfway, and let his head do the rest of the turning to inspect Lucas. There, the boy’s face now was beet red; it looked as if he was stuck in a blizzard inside himself. The quivers continued, and the whimpers continued. Ness would not possibly be able to sleep it off like this.

The raven-haired boy annoyingly got up from lying down, and stepped completely off the blanket. He took the edge of the blanket in his hands, and carefully flipped his side of the blanket onto Lucas, covering the boy with the warm blanket. Ness thought it would help, but despite that, Lucas still shook. The blanket’s warmth wasn’t enough. Lucas’ unstable ice power was too much.

As the final solution to the whole thing, Ness approached the blanketed boy and tucked him in as to make sure that all he could see was Lucas’ head. He then lied down on the grass beside him, and wrapped his arms around the blanket the boy was within. He stared at Lucas’ face, who was facing his, and began creating heat waves through the entirety of his blanket with his embracing arms.

Over time, Lucas stopped shaking, and calmed his frosty, erratic breaths that nearly chilled Ness’ face. The raven haired boy was satisfied at his effort to stop Lucas from freezing himself. The blond presented Ness with a softened facial expression; one that told him that everything was fine.

The raven-haired boy smiled ever so faintly in the darkness as he blew a small breath of warm air at Lucas’ cold, red face. The blond sighed blissfully as Ness' breaths restored color and warmth to his face. 

Ness kept this position for awhile, and found himself getting used to it. Before he knew it, Ness' eyes slowly closed upon themselves, and he drifted into a sleep faster than he originally would've. 


	6. Beary Bear of a Battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the late update!! I had testing and it killed me, but everything's finally over!

_ “Oh god, Lucas.” _

_ What…? _

_ “I think it’s a good time to wake up now.” _

_ So sleepy though… and so comfy… _

_ “Um. I wish you good luck with this one, then.” _

_ Okie. _

_ “I WAS KIDDING DAMMIT! GET UP GET UP GET UPPPPP!!!”  _

Lucas’ eyes tore open as a small squeak escaped his lips. He fumbled in his position, only to find himself restricted. He studied the area around him, seeing the first thing in front of him; it was Ness, whose hat had fallen off through the process of slumber. The blond blinked momentarily in confusion. This was literally the best sleep he has ever had, and being sandwiched by such a thick blanket felt amazing. It was so warm...

Ness was still asleep, and Lucas wondered again why his sleeved arms wrapped around him. In addition, he also pondered why he, himself, woke up so suddenly. The voice just wouldn’t leave him alone.

Lucas was unable to find the strength to awaken the raven-haired boy. Ness looked so peaceful while he slept, and Lucas couldn’t compare his current tranquil expression to his conscious one; which was utterly displeasing and discontented most of the time he was awake. 

It was an early blue morning, too early that Lucas wanted to head back to sleep. However, the voice did in every which way it could to keep him from closing his eyes again.

“Ness,” Lucas whispered to the sleeping raven-haired boy.

“...” A soft, hot, gray breath escaped Ness’ lips, clearly a result of his fire PSI. Lucas’ whisper did no such work to wake him up.

“Ness!” Lucas said gently. 

That did nothing, either. Lucas ended up taking his arms out of the blanket, and shaking Ness’ shoulder.

“Hey!” Lucas shook him mildly.

“No… ‘m sleepy...” Ness cooed handsomely in a tired voice. His arms only tightened around the blanket that wrapped Lucas. The alluring tone brought a flush of pink on Lucas’ cheeks as the blond recoiled backwards and out of Ness’ arms and blanket as a whole. The missing space in Ness’ arms made the raven-haired boy frown slightly, only coddling the blanket more as a result. 

Lucas stumbled backwards on the soft grass, catching himself on his sock-clad feet. It was only until now that he had realized Ness had given him the whole blanket, leaving himself to rest on the grass. It was another kind move of Ness; it was certainly unexpected. A small, friendly grin appeared on Lucas’ plush face. He then proceeded to put on his sneakers, not wanting to get the green of the grass stuck on his white socks.

However, when Lucas thought it was just him and Ness around the area, a sudden sound was heard only a small distance away.

_ Rustle rustle… _

Lucas spared a moment to look around him. Nothing but trees, however, the sight that came into vision nearly give the blond a heart attack.

A huge grizzly bear.

It currently sat in a position, still not looking towards himself or Ness at the moment. It curiously nit-picked at the chip bag Ness and him had shared the day before. Its tongue traveled in and out of the bag, and it would only be just a little while until it got tired, and searched for more food, particularly from Ness and Lucas.

Lucas shakily moved quietly to Ness, who still slept. His eyes never left the bear, until he was completely near the boy. From there, Lucas shook Ness passionately, whispering desperately, “Nessssss!”

Ness opened his eyes crookedly, putting on that displeased look towards Lucas. “What the fuck Lu-”

Lucas placed the blanket and held it to Ness’ mouth, replying with, “Shhhh…!!”

Muffled behind the blanket, Ness said, “Don’t tell me to fucking shut-”

“There’s a bear!” Lucas stared at Ness with fearful eyes. This made the raven-haired boy push Lucas’ hand off of his mouth, and sit up. He looked around silently, only to see the grizzly bear Lucas was talking about. It still paid the two no mind.

Ness put on a bored look as he stared at Lucas. “You woke me up for a bear?” he whispered. 

Lucas gawked at Ness’ reaction.

_ IT’S A BEAR!! WHY AREN’T WE RUNNING FOR OUR LIVES?! _ Lucas yelled internally.

“Uhn…” Ness cooed, rubbing his eyes. He then spoke straightly, “Chill out, it won’t kill us, it’s just a  _ bear _ .”

“How could you just SAY that?!” Lucas argued panicky.

“You seem to have forgotten I could just toast the damn animal if it chooses to come near us,” Ness pointed out bluntly, now cozying himself inside the blanket like Lucas previously was. The blond had no more room to argue; having fire PSI made the bear seem like a small bug to Ness. Not to mention, Lucas’ own ice PSI.

_ “Growl, grur…”  _ the bear sounded, losing interest in the chip bag, now. It looked over at Lucas, who stared back at it, still scared. The grizzly bear ended up coming closer with dangerous intent. The blond squealed as he froze in place, not wanting to leave Ness’ side, even though the raven-haired boy couldn’t give any less care about the whole situation.

However, all seemed normal of the bear to do until the animal emitted a red glow of its own eyes. That made Lucas shake even more, questioning the odd action. 

_ Bears’ eyes do not glow,  _ Lucas pondered frightfully to himself.

The bear then growled, opening its jaw. Distinctive green drool ran down the bear’s chin.

_ Bears also don’t have green saliva,  _ Lucas thought another time,  _ I think I should stop thinking now and get the heck out of here. _

“NESS!” Lucas exclaimed at the sleeping boy, not wanting to make sudden movements just yet, “THE BEAR IS ACTING WEIRD…!”

“Nonsense,” Ness concluded, eyes still closed.

“I-Its eyes are glowing red…” Lucas continued. The bear slowly got even closer.

“Simply improbable,” Ness replied.

“It’s drooling g-green stuff…” Lucas added in.

“Probably from its last lunch,” Ness was consistent, “now shut up.”

“DARN IT, NESS!” Lucas shouted without repressing his voice now. He moved over to the stubborn boy and literally forced his entirety to turn in the direction of the bear. Ness griped at the action, but his eyes now gave him a correct vision of the animal. His violet eyes widened, now expressing an emotion; one that said, ‘Oh shit.’

“WELL?!” Lucas complained. Before Ness said anything, he slipped out of the blanket and was already putting on his red sneakers without bothering to tie them. “...Ness?”

“Option 1: We get the hell out of here. Option 2: I fight it,” was all Ness said, urgently slipping on his hat on top of his rustled locks and picking up the big blanket. He shoved it into his backpack sloppily, and zipped it all up. “We should probably run for our fucking lives to be honest.”

Lucas looked from the slowly approaching bear, to Ness. “Ness... it’s a bear- it’ll probably chase us if we run-”

“RUNNNNNN!!!” Ness suddenly shouted, running off with everything, but Lucas.

“WHAT THE HECK NESS?!” Lucas yelled behind him, beginning to run in his direction, as well, “WAIT FOR ME!”

The bear grunted loudly and threatening, as the boys’ sudden running created the urge for the bear to chase after them, as well. It ran rapidly on all fours.

While Lucas was nearly having a silent, but deadly heart attack, Ness was outwardly screaming occasionally. The reckless terror Ness was showing right now was a sight; the boy wanted  _ nothing _ to do with the huge grizzly bear right on their tails. It was comical in Lucas’ eyes.

“WE’RE GONNA DIE MAN!” Ness shouted breathy without looking back. The two were both running for their lives and sashaying through tightly packed trees, and Lucas couldn’t even manage to reply to Ness immediately because he was so out of air.

_ Bears run faster than humans…!  _ Lucas panicked, looking backwards only for a moment. It was only that little look to send chills of peril down the blond’s spine as he screamed shortly. Ness looked back at Lucas when the boy made the scream, and only saw that the bear was catching up to them without a problem.

“HOLY FUCK THAT’S SCARY AS SHIT!” Ness cursed aloud, speeding up.

“I TH- *breathes* I THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD JUST FRY THE BEAR!” Lucas shouted from behind.

“NOT ALIENATED BEARS!” Ness replied, panicky.

“ALIENATED?!” Lucas exclaimed dramatically. From that word, Ness turned his head back to look at Lucas. He looked very, very unpleased. He was silent towards Lucas for a while, still keeping up his running pace and often taking double-takes on the blond boy right behind him. Lucas was too fearful to be suspicious of Ness at the moment.

The forest seemed endless, and Ness didn’t know where he was running or going. It went off the path that he was planning to take Lucas down in order to get him to the base as soon as he could. Thoughts filled his head, knowing that mentioning the ‘alienated’ bear was a mistake. The raven-haired boy became distracted, and ended up tripping drastically over an exposed tree stem. 

“GCK!” He fell and skidded on one of his forearms across dried grass. Lucas ended up passing him, then immediately stopping and turning around to get him up again. However, before he could, the bear was right there in close contact of the both of them. The run seemed to make the animal look like less of an animal, and more of a mutated creature with nothing but the desire to kill the two psychic boys.

A loud, dangerous grunt emanated from the bear’s mouth as it rose on its hind legs, towering over the two boys. The two reeled away only just a little before the bear actually tossed a swipe of its claws at Ness. Unable to dodge or get up in time, Ness guarded himself, ready for the worst to happen.

Lucas saw it coming, and ended up putting himself in front of the raven-haired boy with his arms together, taking the impact instead. He was launched sideways towards a tree, which he hit hard. Lucas groaned in pain, taking in the agony of being drastically cut into the arms by the animal’s claws. Blood shed from them, along with the same burn the floating teddy bear had caused upon him weeks ago. Though, the pain didn’t sting for too long, and the blond was at least able to balance himself on his two legs for another go.

“LUCAS!” Ness called over with concern, getting up. He snarled angrily at the blond, then put his attention on the bear. He promptly activated his powers; a fiery red glow radiated from his body, hands, and feet. Like a flamethrower, he held up one finger and blew a trail of fire at the bear. The creature stumbled back from the hit, but was not so much affected as Lucas thought it’d be.

Ness sweatdropped, backing away. “I can’t do anything!” 

“Does your fire not work?!” Lucas rasped.

“No…!” Ness admitted. Lucas’ eyes widened. For some reason, the bear was more drawn to Ness than he.

Again, the raven-haired boy pulled another type of fire spell out of his pocket; he sent flames down at the grassy ground beneath the bear, setting it on fire. It burned the alienated bear, but the animal marched on through the flames and charged at the raven-haired kid. Reacting as fast as he could, Ness dodged and rolled over to the side. The bear stopped, then faced Ness again.

Lucas fidgeted, backing away from Ness and the bear’s fight. All he could see was Ness dodging, shooting more fire out at the animal, then dodging again when needed. The raven-haired boy looked desperate for something to happen; he was gradually growing tired of kiting the bear as the animal maintained its inhuman pace. 

The blond stumbled backwards and hid behind a tree. He looked over at Ness with fearful eyes. What was comical to him - running from a bear screaming - turned into something more serious. The hoodied boy could not even break the hardened fur of the alienated bear even with all the hot fire burning inside him. 

The battle caused a few trees to burn around Ness. The temperature was insanely high around the boy that Lucas felt like he was being broiled even at his location; though, he was more distracted by the fight to care. Beads of sweat ran down the blond’s forehead as his body slowed, as if being melted slowly.

The bear ran at Ness one last time, finally catching the boy in a bum rush strike, causing the raven-haired boy to draw back. Ness choked out a splash of blood from his mouth as he stumbled backwards on a tree; the bear had struck him right in the gut, and the animal wasn’t nearly done yet. 

“NESS!” Lucas wailed, running from behind the tree towards the bear.

Ness’ arms twitched as he was reduced to crawling amongst the grassy ground in order to get away. The bear went in for another hit before Lucas could reach him in time. There, the barbarous animal swiped its claws into that of Ness’ thigh, making him bleed, and burn his flesh supernaturally. Ness shrieked at the big cut, and was deemed unmoving after that hit.

Lucas’ heart pounded at the blow, and how much it affected Ness badly. His eyes teared up mildly, as he unknowingly began to emit that blue glow of his. In the situation of peril, more ice began to reappear from below him and make the ground completely frozen. He felt the power surging inside of him as his body frosted over the hot temperature Ness was giving off from his PSI.

Ness was hurt badly, but he hissed even more at how Lucas was dropping the temperature around him. He was bleeding and freezing. The raven-haired boy’s arms wrapped around himself, as his eyes fell shut in concentration to not let the ice boy’s power eat him alive.

Lucas was ready to hurt the bear, yet, he didn’t know why his powers only activated in times like these. He didn’t know what to do, how to try and defeat the bear himself.

_ “Well, what do you want your powers to do?” the voice within Lucas asked.  _

The bear was going to kill Ness with another blow.

Lucas now released some tears from his eyes, as he lunged one arm out at the bear desperately.

_ I DON’T WANT NESS TO DIE! _ Lucas cried out aloud.

Before the blond knew it, the arm he had lunged out at the bear glowed as a ray of ice shot out of his palm. It struck the bear hard like a blunt hit as the ice stuck to the animal and spread across its fur. It didn’t occur to Lucas that the bear was being frozen alive, as it spaced away from the blond and Ness.

The bear growled again, but found itself to be immensely slowed down from Lucas’ icy touch. Ness’ eyes opened up at the blond’s attack on the bear.

Lucas paid no more attention on Ness, as he was more focused on finding another way to do another frosty attack. He furrowed his brows, no longer afraid, but moreover determined. He swiped a hand through the air, creating ice shards from thin air, and shot them at the animal. The shards stabbed the bear, eliciting a painful bellow from the grizzly as blood trickled down its limbs. Ness laid there, staring in awe at Lucas and at the nearly defeated bear. Though, the bear still had a good amount of fight still in it.

“L-Lucas…” Ness groaned out, reaching out a gloved hand, “take my hand, quick…” 

Lucas didn’t understand, but did so, anyway. He kneeled down and grabbed at the raven-haired boy’s hand, and gave him a look of confusion. Ness grimaced, but closed his eyes. The red glow that surrounded his body spread onto Lucas’ blue radiation. Unknown by the blond, Ness had transferred some of his PSI over to Lucas.

The bear approached close again, which was when Lucas started to notice the hand he had been leading his ice powers with glowed with red and blue power. The feeling burnt the inside of Lucas slightly.

“S-Shoot…” Ness rasped, “the bear…”

Lucas hesitated, but the power seemed to have left his palm on its own. A powerful frostfire bolt escaped the blond boy’s trembling hand, and traveled swiftly through the air right at the alienated animal. That seemed to be the final hit, for it blasted into the bear’s body and exploded on impact. The creature stood no chance against the fire and ice combination, and fell backwards with a large thud. Lucas sighed of relief that the beast was gone.

Lucas still held the hand of Ness, whom he had turned to face now. The raven-haired boy went pale as he stared into Lucas’ eyes.

Ness gasped of air, then bit down on his bottom lip. “I…” he breathed out, “I’m so weak…” The grasp he had on Lucas’ hand weakened, falling out of the blond boy’s palm. His fiery aura dissipated and his temperature returned back to a human’s normal one.

“Ness?!” Lucas called out worryingly, “NESS?!” He sat on his knees next to the boy’s body and settled his hands on the other’s arm. His frosty aura, too, disappeared as well.

Ness let out one final breath of gray smoke from his lips, as he faded away into a deep sleep from exhaustion. Lucas mewled with concern at the sudden action, noticing his thigh was still bleeding. 

* * *

Lucas held the raven-haired boy on his back, regretting his overall decision of trying to take the both of them somewhere ‘safer.’ Ness wasn’t fat, but he was most certainly heavier than he looked. Regardless of weight, it was hard carrying him as a whole; he was lucky that Ness was clothed on every part of his body but face because he wasn’t able to touch his skin. It was hard trying to keep Ness’ head from touching Lucas’ while he was being held on his back. This resulted in an awkward way of transportation.

He found a place rather quickly, right next to a small stream of water where there was an open area free of packed trees. He laid Ness down close to the water. Luckily, the bleeding Ness had on his leg had reduced to small trickles of blood, which Lucas accidentally got on the back of his striped shirt while taking him here; though, that didn’t bother him at all. 

Instead, he looked all around him for anything to treat the wound, then took his answers to Ness’ backpack. From there, he slid the pack from Ness’ underside and briskly unzipped a pocket, exploring every which where for some sort of first aid kit. He found one in the biggest pocket with the unfolded blanket, and settled it to the floor as he whipped out a roll of medicine tape, and antibiotic spray.

Carefully, he picked Ness up again and settled his back up against a tree. The laceration was on Ness’ left leg, which the bear had to tear through in order to reach his skin. His cargo pants ripped along the trail of the bear’s claw, completely ruining the pants as a whole.

Lucas stared at the injured boy, confused on how to approach the situation. He had to bandage Ness up, but he couldn’t touch the boy’s skin directly for the sake of inflicting a frosty touch on his body while he wasn’t awake to fight it. Lucas made a small whine of concern.

_ If we both have powers, shouldn’t he heal quickly like I do, too? _ Lucas assumed,  _ Does he even need bandages? _

Afterwards, the blond inspected himself, particularly, his arms that the bear had torn into earlier. It wasn’t any better than the blow Ness had received, but right now in comparison, the lacerations had already closed itself and was healing. The blond compared it to that of Ness’, and he healed, but Ness’ didn’t. The wound on his thigh remained opened and trickled down with trails of blood that stained his clothing.

Lucas awkwardly tugged at Ness’ baggy pants, trying to get a better look. The blond bit the inside of his cheek. 

_ He really doesn’t heal like I do… _ Lucas concluded upsettingly. He knew that because of this, he’d have to address the problem…  _ directly _ . What made the problem a problem was that the swipe occurred high up on Ness’ thigh, and his cargo pants got in the way of bandaging...

This was going to be something Lucas never did before, but it was for the sake of Ness’ wellbeing. He proceeded first by unbuttoning the single button on Ness’ cargo pants. Afterwards, he held onto the zipper.

_...Zip! _

Lucas took a hold of Ness’ pants zipper and zipped it down an inch. The blond flustered, stopping and hesitating to unzip the rest down and undress the boy.

_ DO IT LUCAS! _ the blond yelled within himself as he furrowed his eyebrows,  _ DO IT FOR HEALTH REASONS! _

With that, he zipped the rest down, and grabbed the sides of the pants carefully, still not wanting to touch his skin, ready to pull down. Again, he hesitated.

_...Why do I begin to care now?! He’s still bleeding and all I can think about is how weird this is…! _ Lucas argued. His hands trembled, but he slowly pulled down Ness’ pants halfway. However, even then, Ness’ boxers got in the way, now.

_ Why is life so hard? _

Lucas’ face was tinted a deep red now as his hands wandered to each end of Ness’ blue plaid boxers. He tugged on it, feeling as if he was violating the rights of Ness. 

“... _ Dude, _ ” a weak voice murmured quietly. 

“H-HUH?!” Lucas’ head shot up from the great focus he put on taking off the boxers. He was greeted to a conscious, half-lidded Ness. The raven-haired boy had barely woken up, and still felt dead. However, despite how tired he was, Ness still had the energy to put on a very blunt judgemental face for Lucas.

“I-It’s not what it seems!!” Lucas said urgently, still blushing like crazy, “You got cut on the leg from the bear a-and I was just trying to bandage it!” The blond pointed to the open wound on Ness’ leg. “L-Look, it’s still bleeding!” 

Ness remained unfazed, and his half-lidded eyes blinked slowly, showing a doubtful look at Lucas.

“...Oh  _ really _ ?” Ness questioned sarcastically. He looked neutral at the situation.

“YES!”

…

A silence. Lucas sat on his knees between Ness’ legs, as the raven-haired boy laid back against the tree Lucas sat him up against. They seemed to have kept this position for the long while. 

Lucas griped. Ness breathed in.

“In the case that you were lying, you could’ve just asked and I would’ve showed you,” Ness plain out said. By that point, he was just messing with Lucas, now. He snickered evilly, half-smiling.

“NO! You’re not getting it…!” Lucas hid his face behind his hands in embarrassment, “AUGH!”

“You see, I’m pretty proud of it, ya know,” Ness added on.

“Stop talking about it!!” Lucas mumbled from behind his hands. He shook his head passionately.

“I measured it before, I think it’s a good size for my age,” Ness kept going while wearing a little smirk.

“STOP!”

“Are you okay with me being above average?”

“OH MY GOSH!” At that point, Lucas shuffled backwards and away from the raven-haired boy, who was laughing so hard, while coughing at the same time. The blond couldn’t bear to be around the boy, who teased him to no end.

_ I knew it, I should’ve let him bleed. _ Lucas faced his back at the raven-haired boy, still with tinted cheeks.

“Oh, but anyways.” Ness stopped his laughter. “Thanks… for earlier, with the bear and stuff.”

That was when Lucas turned around, and approached Ness again. Lucas didn’t know what kind of expression to wear at the moment, but he replied, “Oh, yeah. No problem. Though, I still had no idea what I was doing.” 

“I could tell.”

…

“Will you pull up your pants, now?” Lucas asked, looking away.

“But you still haven’t bandaged me, yet.” Ness stifled a small chuckle. Lucas didn’t know how to reply.

“I’m being completely serious now. This fucking hurts.” Ness pointed at the cut, his expression turning stern. Lucas nodded, then got up close again, between Ness’ legs. The raven-haired kid complied by helping the blond out, now. Instead of taking off his boxers, he just pulled them up enough to reveal the cut, and held it.

Lucas picked up the antibiotic spray, and sprayed the chemical all over the wound. Ness hissed at the stinging pain, but let Lucas did as he wanted. Afterwards, Lucas grabbed the first aid kit again and took out some cloth to put on Ness’ cut. He then taped the cloth down with the bandage and wrapped it around his thigh, often needing help from Ness himself so that they wouldn’t make skin contact.

When they were done, Lucas put the tools away into the kit, closed it shut, then put it back into Ness’ bag again. He strolled down a bit towards the river stream to put more space in between them.

“Where you going?” Ness asked.

“Nowhere, just putting space between us so you don’t feel cold again,” Lucas clarified. The blond, over time, found himself caring about the boy for no real reason.

“Oh,” Ness said blandly, “it’s fine if you’re near me, I’m getting used to it.” The raven-haired boy still sat against the tree, as he patted the soft soil next to him. “You can sit here.”

“Are you sure?” Lucas asked cautiously.

“Yeah.”

Lucas smiled a bit.

Following after, the blond made his way back to Ness, and sat right beside him against the tree. It was at that moment, everything felt fine and safe to Lucas. The bear was gone, and sitting next to Ness felt so comfortable.

It was a new kind of feeling for the blond; he felt more accepted by this boy than how he originally met him. It seemed as if Ness’ remarks started to die down into unreal teases. Though Lucas still labeled the boy ‘autistic,’ he felt Ness coming along just fine.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Ness presented.

“What is it?”

“Why did you bother to save me?”

Lucas paused, exchanging stares with Ness. The glimmer in Ness’ violet eyes revealed innocence of the question.

_ Shouldn’t that be self-explanatory…?  _ Lucas thought.

“Well, I care about you…” Lucas trailed off.

“Um,  _ why _ ?” Ness asked, disgusted in a way. His eyebrows shaped into irritation. The reaction was surprising to Lucas, who thought that anyone would be happy to know that someone cared about them.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Lucas pointed out, “Plus, you fed me and helped me out in other situations, even if you’re the one who caused it.”

“Isn’t it just obligatory to help you?” Ness said, unpleased. Instantly, those words made Lucas feel the same as he did when he first met Ness again; hated and uncared for.

“I-It might be like that for  _ you _ ,” Lucas stammered, “but I did it because I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“...”

“I would’ve ran away and let you get killed by the bear if I didn’t care about you, basically,” Lucas specified to give Ness a better idea. The raven-haired boy’s stern expression softened. He looked away from Lucas, making the blond feel even more rejected of friendship. Lucas looked upset.

“...Oh, thanks.” Ness still didn’t bother to look at Lucas again. Although, Lucas spectated a faint redness on the raven-haired boy’s face. 

Unknowing of what that meant, Lucas replied, “No problem.”

Another silence followed suit, when Lucas started to notice Ness shiver from his cold presence. 

Despite that Ness had told the blond he was fine with him being near, Lucas inquired, “Want me to get your blanket for you?”

“...No,” Ness stubbornly demanded. He hugged himself, taking off his hat and putting it to the side. He pulled up his hoodie and coddled himself for warmth. 

_ He’s acting like such a child. _

Lucas wasn’t going to let him stay like that, so regardless of what Ness wanted, he got up and dug through his backpack for the blanket. Ness gave Lucas an angry look, which the blond ignored. Lucas took out the wad the blanket was formed in, held it by an edge, and unfolded it in front of the other boy’s violet eyes.

From there, Lucas wrapped it around Ness, who didn’t do much to fight it. He tucked it around the grumbling boy, and when he was done, he sat right back next to a comfy, blanketed Ness. The raven-haired boy couldn’t argue that it was tons more comfortable and warm than he originally was before he was wrapped.

“Why do you do this… seriously…” Ness mumbled underneath the blanket.

“Like I said, I  _ care _ ,” Lucas responded, “it’s not that hard of an idea to grasp onto, Ness.”

“I really do think you should stop doing so,” Ness warned upsettingly.

“Why?” 

“...” Ness clenched down his teeth, but it went unnoticed due to the blanket around him. He couldn’t answer that. Not  _ honestly _ . Because Ness was going to take his powers to make himself a frostfire PSI user—because the blond was going to end up dying due to that. Someone who grew to care about a reckless, uncaring boy like him, is going to die in return. Ness just didn’t know how to handle that fact.

It ate him of guilt in the end, because he wasn’t lucky enough to be born with the power of two people like Lucas was. Ness was born slightly telepathic, at first, without fire PSI. Lucas wasn’t going to be the first one dying to his hands because the raven-haired boy needed to harvest him. That fire PSI wasn’t even  _ his _ . It belonged to a girl beforehand; just a girl that he used to know.

“Just… stop,  _ please _ ,” Ness begged in a completely different tone, his memories returning back to him. He shook beneath the blanket, clutching onto his black hair with both hands. Why did  _ he _ have to go through with this plan? Why must  _ he _ be the vessel to take every special kids’ power in order to ‘save’ the world, when he could barely save himself. 

“Ness are you… okay…?” Lucas cautiously brought over a helping hand, which Ness backed away from angrily.

“Get the  _ fuck _ away,” Ness retorted; his tone was nothing to be messed with at the moment. “Nevermind what I said. Don’t come next to me, anymore. You  _ are _ cold.”

Lucas flinched from the harsh words. He gloomed, standing up.

“...I wish I wasn’t, though,” was the last thing Lucas said, before walking far away again, sitting at the edge of the rocky, river stream. His back was turned.

Ness only found himself staring at the blond’s back with remorse. The anger funneled into sadness. When he inspected the blond more closely, he could see the bits of blood he had bled on Lucas, on the back of his striped shirt. He only figured that Lucas carried him here, away from the dead bear, and everything else unsafe.

And that made Ness even sadder.


	7. Doesn't Matter, We're Professionals

Ness laid against the tree, napping. It was only until then that Lucas decided to wander just a bit closer to the boy, but still stayed near the stream. The water hitting the rocks rung in his ears, as he was tempted to touch the water for himself. There was nothing to do, other than wait for Ness to heal and get rest, which he was doing.

Lucas jumped every which way on the big rocks that lodged out of the stream of water. He perched himself upon one rock in particular that jutted out of the shallow stream, bent over, and stuck a finger in moving water. What started with a finger turned into a hand, then soon, both hands. The blond giggled to himself as he splashed and played with the water, enjoying the wet feeling.

However, the blond gasped slightly, when the water slipping through his fingers turned into small little flakes of ice as it went down the stream. He was only bewildered for a moment, but didn't know what to expect other than _this_ happening. He sighed, feeling his PSI leak from his fingertips, and into the stream.

_At least I'm not turning the whole stream into ice,_ Lucas thought on the brighter side. He wasn't so pleased that his PSI came and went as it wished. Though, in a short notice, a smile came onto his face. _But… this is so cool…!_ The blond rapidly swished his submerged fingers around, making more and more icy flakes, and sometimes even cubes of ice. He picked once ice piece up, and did the first thing that came to mind.

He stuck the ice in his mouth. The small cube melted on his tongue, and he was enjoying every bit of it. Although, once he tasted the melted water in his mouth, he immediately spat it out. The river water didn't taste so good.

Afterwards, another idea popped into Lucas' head.

_I should practice my powers!_ he thought excitedly, standing up on both feet, now. He struck a pose, then another, being fine with the second one more than the first. He stood firmly on the rock, with both arms held up in front of him.

He took a deep breath, ever so slowly, and swiped an arm through the air, hoping for something to happen. No dice, but Lucas wasn't done attempting, yet. He now held up his index finger, pointing it at nothing in particular, and flexed, as if forcing the power from his fingertip via muscular contractions. Still no dice.

* * *

**A half hour later.**

_WHY WON'T THIS DARN THING WORK?!_ Lucas yelled internally, still perched upon the rock he was on. He was flapping his arms in the air weirdly at this point, not expecting anything else to happen from this point. He had already tried every arm movement, and also bothered to kick his leg in the air in the case that his bottom limbs would exude some sort of frosty power. He even made a gesture with his hand that mimicked that of spider-man's hand when he would shoot out his web from his wrist.

Lucas groaned aloud, then decided to stop standing, and finally sit down on the jutted rock. He was getting tired of trying to figure himself out.

_How can I control this PSI thing if I can't even control my own feelings_. Lucas grumbled, switching his gaze over to a sleeping Ness. The raven-haired boy napped peacefully, and had been napping for a few hours now. He was still a bit bothered at how resentful Ness was to him earlier; moreover because he didn't know a single soul that would get mad at another person for being _nice_. Lucas saved Ness from an alienated bear, carried him to this stream, helped bandage him, and gave him a blanket. The blond had no idea what he could've possibly done to get on Ness' bad side.

The blond pouted at Ness' sleeping, but also thought the way he slept was still peaceful… maybe even cute.

_Cute?!_ Lucas argued with himself, _What the heck am I thinking?!_

Despite those fighting thoughts, the blond still found himself staring at Ness more than he should be. He was mean, but he was attractive at the same time; Lucas hated that kind of match-up. He found it stupid how some people could be jackasses _and_ be hot while doing so; those were the types he thought that most girls would fawn over because they'd be too blinded by their good looks to realize how much of a jerk they were.

But Lucas was a boy; and he felt like he was staring at Ness the same way any other girl would if the boy went to a school. Because of that, Lucas could clarify his feelings at the moment.

_Just don't stare at him, Lucas,_ he told himself, _that good looking bastard._

He was unsure if he wanted Ness, or wanted to _be_ him. Being Lucas, and being a boy, he figured he was just a bit envious of Ness' looks in the end. Nothing more.

To distract himself, he looked somewhere else; he stared intently at a stray rock in the river stream, but still found himself thinking of Ness. The raven-haired boy just acted so _weird_ and _mysterious_. It piqued Lucas' interest to no end. He laid back on the rock, using his hands to prop him up from the back.

Caught up in his train of thought, Lucas didn't manage to notice that his hands, which were in contact with the rock he was sitting upon, began to turn the rock's outer surface into ice. When he started to feel that his bottom was getting a little bit more than cold, the blond looked below him, seeing the icy surface. He shrieked in surprise, hopping off the rock instantly and splashing into the stream that reached all the way up to his neck.

Lucas frantically ran towards shore, stumbling over the jutted rocks and pebbles as he neared where Ness was at. As soon as he reached the grass, he turned around whilst hugging his soaked self. He looked at the rock he was resting upon, which was now completely covered in ice. Lucas sighed, cursing his uncontrolled cold power for coming out of nowhere the majority of the time. However, he was too cold and wet to get distressed. A small whine escaped Lucas' pink lips as the blond soon found the water that still stuck to his body and clothes was also becoming a bit icy as well.

_No no no no no! Stop it!_ Lucas hectically wiped his hands over his limbs in hopes to take off the growing ice flakes appearing there, but it was no use. He didn't give up, though. Small whimpers emerged from him as he felt the wetness disappearing, and instead, was being replaced with an icy cask. It was getting too cold for him to handle, and he was panicking at the possible thought of dying from the cold. It was as if he had been snowed upon heavily, and he did the first thing that came to mind.

"NESS!" Lucas wailed out, running over to the sleeping, blanketed boy, shaking him awake urgently.

It took only a little while to get Ness to respond. Eyes closed, Ness' brows furrowed. "Oh my _god_." He shut his eyes closed tight, still, as if he didn't _want_ to look at Lucas. "You're so damn cold… what the fuck…" he cooed grumpily, "go away." He turned slightly.

"I-I'm freezing, Ness!" Lucas personally didn't know how to tell Ness of his fuck up without sounding stupid. This made the raven-haired boy open his eyes spitefully, staring daggers at the blond until he saw the icy mess that was his entire body. Lucas was even breathing white cold breaths that were visible to see.

Immediately, a smile crawled onto Ness' face before he bursted into a weak, just waking up from a sleep laughter.

"Pff… ahahahah!" Ness' laughs were contagious, but Lucas was too worried about himself to join in. The blond just got on both knees next to Ness, and whined at the reaction.

This was quite the sight for Ness, practically one of the funniest; he didn't see it coming at all. It didn't take him much thought to realize that Lucas probably fucked up stupidly, and that made everything all the more funnier to him.

"S-Seriously N-Ness, I'm f-freezing! H-HELP ME!" Lucas insisted, only a little brightened by Ness' happy looking expression. He couldn't get mad at him for some reason.

"And how do you expect me to do that?" Ness answered sarcastically, still enjoying himself.

"S-Set me on f-fire or s-something!"

"I really don't feel like helping you, though..." Ness stretched out his limbs from underneath the blanket. "Besides, it was your own fuck up."

"C-C'MON, P-PLEASE?!" Lucas pleaded, "I-I'M S-SORRY!"

Ness stared at the blond with disinterest for moment, but took the apology, and realized that he might be stalling for too long. "Meh." He shrugged. "Okay."

Lucas finally found himself in content that the raven-haired boy would help out. He stood up with hope as Ness did as well, flipping the blanket off to the side. Ness bent backwards weakly, still getting used to standing after the bear had hurt him like it did. Lucas, who was still frosted over, waited anxiously. His arms hugged himself, desperate for warmth.

Ness yawned, then faced the frosted boy. "Here." He held his arms out for Lucas, signalling a hug.

"...?" Lucas looked at him, confused. "W-What?"

"It's a hug, stupid. Want to melt off, or not?" Ness was impatient, his arms still hung out.

"O-Oh!" Lucas blinked awkwardly. He slowly walked into boy's arms. Being fully clothed, Ness was able to take Lucas into his arms without worrying about letting his naked skin hit Lucas'.

Already, the slightly shorter blond felt the automatic warmth that came with Ness as a whole; he buried his face into Ness' hoodied chest, as the raven-haired boy's arms wrapped around him in an embrace.

"Tell me when it gets too hot," said Ness.

"O-Okay." Lucas shook nervously, not from the cold, but from the strange contact Ness had offered to the blond.

Following after, he felt Ness' body slowly rocket up in temperature, slowing getting hotter and hotter. The sensation melted Lucas like an ice cube, but it simply felt amazing. The blond rose up his head from Ness' chest, and looked up at the boy. His gleaming violet eyes stuck to his, as he radiated a faint red glow. Lucas flustered, looking away the second he made eye contact.

"Is it too hot, yet?" Ness asked, wondering.

"Not really."

"I'm at 300 degrees," Ness warned, raising an eyebrow. His clothed arms wrapped around Lucas more in attempt to show him the heat.

"I'm okay," Lucas mumbled into Ness' chest. He also snuggled in closer to Ness on his own account.

"You sure…?" Ness made a small frown, looking down at the blond. "Want me to go higher?"

"Yeah."

With that, Ness skyrocketed his temperature even higher. The more he did, the more Lucas' body relaxed.

"So warm... " Lucas murmured softly. He felt as if he was going to melt into Ness' warmth.

"Funny," Ness commented, "you still feel like a wrapped ice cube to me."

The reaction was unexpected from Lucas; the blond just giggled at that. Ness shook momentarily, being caught off guard. He had thought he insulted the boy like he intended to.

At around 500 degrees, Ness stopped there, not going any higher in fear of burning the blond, or rather, his clothes after all the ice would be melted. The ice was stronger than it looked, and after a minute, Lucas was completely fine. Though, when Ness wanted to end the hug, the blond just stuck to him like a magnet.

"Um." Ness looked one way, then back at Lucas weirdly. "Let go."

"...Okay," Lucas muttered softly, slipping away from Ness. His cerulean eyes were half-lidded, staring dizzily at Ness; he wore a small, relaxed smile, as he stumbled backwards with horrible balance. His face was a delightful red from the risen temperature.

Ness pursed his lips together, trying not to pay mind to the euphoria he left Lucas in by just warming the boy up. He rolled his eyes subtly, taking a seat down by the tree he napped at again. He stared at the blond, who had fallen on his side a few feet off, facing Ness. Lucas was still in the state of being warmed, like a piece of clothing freshly out of the dryer. The raven-haired boy couldn't help but snicker a bit, but that was all he allowed himself to do.

"Hey, Lucas?" Ness asked from a small distance away.

"Yeah~?"

"...Did… you like that by any chance…?" Ness seemed a bit embarrassed asking.

"It was _amazing_." Lucas gave him a lazy looking smile. It was really warm earlier, but his icy PSI quickly took him back to where he usually is. The blond stood up on both legs, smiling fully now.

"Ah," Ness responded with no emotion in particular. He turned back to tend to himself, and flipped the blanket on himself again. "And one more thing."

"Hm?"

"How the hell did you get frozen over like that?" Ness spat out rudely and judgmentally.

"I fell into the stream… and all of a sudden I just started freezing." Lucas fiddled with his fingers. "I was trying to figure out how to use my powers…"

Ness scoffed lightly to himself, looking from Lucas, then to the frozen rock sticking out of the stream. The raven-haired boy knew that Lucas had managed to get some sort of PSI going, without necessarily being in danger. Maybe he was getting a bit closer to figuring out how to use his power? That possibility sent unpleasing chills down his back.

"I don't want to keep on helping you, just letting you know," Ness replied meanly. If Lucas got good control over his frost PSI, Ness won't have room to take control over the boy; Lucas would be stronger than Ness.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that." Lucas rubbed the back of his head guiltily. "Just wanted to figure it out quick in case another animal comes attacking us again. I don't want you to fight alone."

" _Goddammit,"_ Ness whispered under his breath so that Lucas couldn't hear. His expression softened. Lucas tilted his head.

"Whatever," Ness finalized, helping himself to comfort within his blanket. The blond only looked at him, disappointed that his goal to help out the fire PSI boy was denied. He frowned, and turned towards the river again for more practice.

As Lucas approached the river, he jumped from rock to rock like earlier, finding yet another rock to perch upon and practice his powers. He vowed not to mess up again. Ness just sat by the tree, spectating in interest.

Small grunts from Lucas was heard faintly by Ness as the blond tried his best again to make his power happen. Ness cringed at how horribly Lucas was failing at getting 'control' of his PSI; it was so bad that the raven-haired boy couldn't laugh at it, but wanted to instead look away.

"Ngh!" Lucas flung an arm out, trying to replicate the way he had attacked the bear miraculously out of nowhere. The blond didn't expect anything to happen, and nothing did. All he could configure was trial and error. He knew he wasn't doing _something_ right.

Ness sighed, facepalming stressfully. Lucas really _didn't_ have any sort of control over his power; he couldn't even make it come out. The raven-haired boy stared at Lucas, judging, and thinking he was a dunce on how he was approaching the situation. For some reason, he wanted to help the blond out, but knew it would make Lucas even more of a threat to him once he finds out Ness was basically using him the whole way through. Ness bit his bottom lip, getting irritated by the fact that he's even paying attention to Lucas at all.

The overall better choice was to let the blond stay confused with his PSI.

Ness clutched the blanket with both hands, only remembering Lucas' reasoning behind wanting to figure out how to use his PSI. It was for a good reason, Ness had to admit, finding himself drawn in by the blond's kindness, yet, repelled. It was a complicated process that he couldn't understand.

Resentfully, as if Lucas was his responsibility (which he kind of was), Ness got up and casually strolled over to the edge of the stream. He stood, one hand on his hip firmly.

"Lucas."

The blond got startled as he jerked his vision to Ness. Lucas got wide-eyed and a bit flustered, thinking that Ness was heading to sleep again, only to be wrong.

"What the hell are you doing?" Ness interrogated.

"I'm, uh-"

"You're doing it wrong," Ness answered himself. Lucas looked only slightly offended.

"I thought you said there was no right way to do it," Lucas pointed out. Ness just shook his head at the blond as he continued on.

"Ugh," Ness griped, "just take into consideration that it's not about what you do, but how you _feel_ about it."

"Feel...?" Lucas' eyes widened. Also at the fact that the raven-haired boy was helping him out with this.

"Yes." Ness bit the inside of his cheek remorsefully. He couldn't believe he was helping Lucas with this of all things. He also didn't know why he was letting himself do so. Maybe it was to repay the blond somehow for saving him from the alienated bear.

"I don't quite follow..."

"Well, how fucking badly do you want to use your frost powers?"

"...It's... Eh." Lucas shaked his hand iffy for a medium measurement.

"Then you're not going to freeze anything. You could either _desire_ to freeze something, or base it off any passionate emotion." Ness felt like he was giving too much info at this point. He brushed a hand through his black hair anxiously.

"What do you mean 'passionate' emotion though?"

"God you ask too much damn questions."

Lucas looked downwards, feeling a little bit stupid for not understanding. However, Ness rolled his eyes and still answered him.

"Look, you don't throw PSI around like it's nothing. Give it a _reason_ to exist," Ness advised spitefully, "freeze something out of anger, sadness, frustration, anything."

Lucas looked like he was starting to get the gist, now, when Ness suddenly used his PSI. The raven-haired boy emitted the usual red glow, holding a palm open calmly in front of him for Lucas to see. In that palm, a flame erupted from the surface, and began dancing in Ness' hand beautifully. Afterwards, Ness dissipated the flame into thin air with the close of his hand.

Ness stared into Lucas. "I can do _that_ because I'm angry. I'm getting so impatient at how slow you're being to learn this." The raven-haired kid stuck both hands into his pockets. "And I could stop it because there's no reason for me to use my fire anymore since I proved my point that you're slow."

"So basically..." Lucas pondered, "causation and closure?"

"Yeah," Ness approved, "and if you're wondering why your ice comes out of nowhere, well, it's clear that you're just confused. You don't feel at peace with your emotions."

Lucas' heart thumped at those words. He was pretty confused, himself. Ness wasn't wrong on that point. It's just... Lucas didn't understand anything. What he wanted out of life. He was missing so many things as simple as two parents being around him. Even the blond had to admit that he didn't know what to do about himself when he got back home, or back to town that is; since his home is clearly off limits probably even now, still.

"You're feeling lost," Ness stated out of the blue, "you're not going to get anywhere with that."

"What, how do you even know?" Lucas asked curiously. He was sure that he kept a neutral face the whole time.

Ness shrugged as if it was no big deal when telling Lucas, "I'm part telepathic."

Lucas immediately flinched at that and held his head with his hands. "NO! Don't read what's in my mind!"

Ness sighed. "Chill out. I can only detect emotion. It's pretty damn useless, so I don't go out of my way to find out how someone is feeling. Waste of my time."

He then turned his back to Lucas, heading back to the tree.

_Well geez... That's harsh..._ Lucas frowned a bit at Ness' response.

Without noticing it himself, Ness just continued venting and complaining aloud, "Detect fucking emotions. How helpful. Simply the best thing to use when in danger. Now I could for _sure_ know that the bear was mad as shit. Ugh." He was now folding the blanket and tucking it back cleanly into his backpack. "Reading minds would've been a whole different story. But no, I'm stuck with feeling others' emotions."

Lucas, on the other hand, got off the rock, came back to the forest floor, and stood a safe distance away from Ness.

"But that's so cool!" The blond's eyes sparkled at Ness, who stared back weirdly. "...I'm being serious!"

"Psh," Ness scoffed, "it's not cool at all." He looked away, not as much mad as expected to be. Ness was flattered just a little that Lucas admired a trait he was actually born with.

"Ah, but think about it!" Lucas grinned involuntarily. "You could read people's emotions and know who's sad or not, maybe even a girl's to see if she likes you!"

Ness couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the silly answer. "Oh _really_?"

"Yes! That sounds like such a fun power!" Lucas kept that grin.

"I guess so, haha." Ness flipped his hat onto his head, and slid the bill to his right. He wasn't mad at all in this situation, but enjoyed the genuine admiration. It was written all over Lucas' face, and Ness felt it, as well.

Lucas nodded at the reply, but said nothing after that. He just looked at Ness with subtle intent, wondering what he was going to do, since he wasn't going back to sleep, and was instead putting away the blanket. The raven-haired boy seemed to have packed everything up, ready to get a move on from this stream for the day.

Ness backed up from the tree he slept at, and went towards the water. He stood there, looking to and fro; a confused look popped onto his face. It was unsettling.

"What's wrong?" asked Lucas.

"I don't… know where we are…" Ness drawled out nervously, "aw shit… I'm hungry, too."

Lucas nodded, but wasn't as necessarily caring as much as Ness was about it. He was lost in knowing their own location, and always has been. He sympathized, however.

"So am I," Lucas inquired.

"..." Ness scratched at his black hair.

"What'll we do?"

"Er- I dunno. Follow the water?" Ness shrugged, casually responding, "it's better to follow it and go straight, instead of ending up walking in circles."

"Hm, okay!" Lucas agreed.

The afternoon was still young, and there was enough time for more walking. The boys were out of shape though, but had the energy to. Their clothes were blood stained where they've been attacked by the bear, and Ness' leg was still healing as well. The raven-haired boy made it seem insignificant though; he didn't want to appear to be weak in front of the blond. After all, the blond has gotten it easier; he could heal at an inhuman pace, which clearly came with his PSI. Ness found that really lucky.

* * *

"This stream," Ness complained, "is too fucking long." He chugged at his bottle of water as he walked. Despite him being a fire PSI user, he had to wipe beads of sweat off his forehead from overworking his body physically by trekking a long distance.

Lucas did the same, as he was running out of energy as well. He sipped at his water sparingly, following behind the raven-haired boy with a noticeable gap between them. Ness still didn't change his mind on letting him be directly by his side.

Like a symphony, their tummies rumbled one after the other. Ness was starving for _something_ , and Lucas was starved to the point that his belly was pained.

Lucas breathed in, tired. "I'm so _hungry_."

"Ugh…" Ness groaned for the both of them. "Goddammit, I didn't expect us to get lost. Or be attacked. This threw us way off course." The way he had said it sounded apologetic.

"It's fine by me," Lucas pointed out in attempt to sedate the slightly grumpy Ness.

"It's not fine _altogether_." Ness threw an arm in the air with frustration. That seemed to be the conversation killer of the day.

They continued walking their tiring walk, until they've gotten a sign.

" _NO TRESPASSING."_

Literally a sign.

Both boys rose an eyebrow as they found their way to this after departing ways with the stream a little. The sign was on a tall, wired fence that had spiral barbs at the top. It looked daunting, but it also looked like a potential sanctuary to them; behind said fence looked like an orchard of trees, aka food. They stood staring, plotting what they should do next.

"Well," Ness started, "let's go." He neared the wired fence, and started to climb on it just a bit before Lucas lunged a hand at Ness' arm, pulling him back.

"No!" Lucas worried. "Don't you see that it says, 'No Trespassing'?! And there's barbs at the top!"

" _So?"_ Ness sounded like he didn't care, which he didn't.

"We'll get in trouble!" Lucas argued, flailing his arms up.

"UNLESS there's more bears inside these fences, we'll be just fine. Besides, I'm hungry dammit. You can't stop me, blondie." With that, Ness continued to climb up, and rather fast. His fit, agile body brought him to the top, about to near the barbs.

' _Blondie'?!_ Lucas fumed a bit at the racist insult, but Ness said it too silly to get seriously mad at. The blond just stared up at Ness, hoping he'd fail in some way shape or form with the barbs. However, Ness didn't, and literally placed his legs carefully in between the loops of the barbs. At one point, the raven-haired boy had to hold onto the barbs, but it wasn't much of a problem because he kept on those black leather gloves. Before Lucas knew it, Ness made it past the hard part, the barbs, and leaped off the fence the rest of the way and landed with his legs bent.

"..." Lucas stood, mouth gaping at how Ness made it over the barbed fence unharmed, and also at the fact that he jumped down the whole length of the fence itself.

"Welp." Ness unnecessarly dusted off his gloves. "See ya." He waved with a little smirk, walking away towards the nearby tree orchard.

"W-What?!" Lucas called out, hands on the fence. The trees held delicious apples, and Lucas could see Ness climb up one in the distance without much effort. Ness was far, but even there, Lucas could see him smiling smugly as he picked out 2 red apples. He hopped out of that tree and plopped onto the green, luscious grass the orchard was built upon, and started to walk back to Lucas.

"Yo," Ness greeted. He held one red apple in front of the blond, and bit into it.

_Crunch._

The juicy crunch made the blond nearly drool at the sound and sight of the well grown apples Ness was holding. The raven-haired boy still had another apple, which Lucas thought was for him.

The blond smiled hopefully, saying, "Thanks, Ness!"

However, Ness didn't make any move to give the blond the other apple, and just stood there eating his own. This confused Lucas.

"Oh, this one's not for you," Ness told Lucas.

Lucas whined aloud, giving an angry look at Ness. "Then who's it for?!"

"Me." Ness smirked. "Or for you, when you get over the fence like I did."

" _Ness!"_ Lucas said his name angrily, clearly knowing he was being teased, "C-Can't you just melt the fence off?!"

"I could've, but then I wouldn't get to see you climb the fence."

"You're so _mean,_ Ness!"

"Did you just notice that, now?" Ness taunted evilly. He made soft chuckles, enjoying this moment a lot. Lucas just stood there, growing an embarrassed blush on his face. "Or are you just too _scared_ of getting in trouble?" now Ness really was teasing. "That 'No Trespassing' sign is so scary."

"You're trespassing, AND stealing!" Lucas told Ness.

Ness bit his teeth into his apple more audibly. "I think it's _*crunch*_ very _*crunch*_ worth it."

"NGHGGH." Lucas held his blond locks in his hands from frustration, making Ness burst into a fit of laughter.

Ness had to stop eating his apple to avoid choking on the pieces since he was laughing too hard. "HAHAHAA! I swear- your reactions are _priceless_!"

"Screw you." Lucas' fingers tightened on the fence. Ness just laughed even more. Though, when Lucas heard the last thing Ness said, small butterflies traveled in the pit of his stomach. Now he was nervous, _and_ hungry.

"Tell me," Ness interrogated, "how badly do you want this apple?"

"Very badly," Lucas admitted, not so drastically angry, "but you're not giving it to me!"

"Well, I don't feel you wanting it enough for me to give it to you," Ness stated.

Gradually, Lucas' soft anger started to get higher. Being teased for such an unnecessarily long time was started to bother the blond. He glowered at Ness, face red, only receiving an unhelpful smirk from the raven-haired boy. Not to mention, Lucas was tired physically, and mentally. His high tolerance levels were being beaten once again.

Ness watched with intent, still eating. Lucas couldn't do anything but just downright hate Ness right now. He got so mad and flustered at him that his ice powers began to leak out again. The ice flew from his fingertips, which were wrapped around the fence's wires, and froze the entire fence top to bottom, in a 20 feet spread.

Ness whistled, staring at the blue, frozen fence piece. It happened so fast, Lucas flinched, then backed away instantly from what he did. A few moments following after, the wires became brittle and collapsed downwards, making a rather huge entryway for Lucas to get to Ness, now. The blond awkwardly stepped over the pieces of ice, hoping not to slip, and went to the other boy.

Lucas received a pat on the back from Ness, which was a surprise.

"And that's step one to learning how to use your PSI," Ness stated, "hopefully that's enough to make you realize what it takes to use your powers." The whole time, he knew what he was doing.

"Step one?!" Lucas exclaimed, "I have to get angry like that to make something happen?!"

"No, but anger is the easiest one to go off on. It's the most unstable though, so I recommend learning to use your PSI because of something else. Maybe like happiness."

"Happiness…" Lucas muttered to himself, turning somber.

"Yes. Now say 'ah,'" Ness suggested.

"Ah?" Lucas did as told, leaving his mouth only slightly opened. "HCK—"

Ness stuck the other apple in Lucas' mouth.

"Good job," Ness told him.

Lucas' eyes widened, stupidly holding the red apple with his teeth and his teeth only. The redness of his cheeks that worn off earlier came back to him as he stared at Ness. The raven-haired boy's eyes glimmered its luminous violet as he returned the same gaze back at him.

Ness smiled.


	8. We Don't Need Directions (1 of 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> College has been... busy. I almost forgot I was even writing this in the first place. :,) oh man how bad is that?

****“First goal: We need to get directions,” Ness told Lucas. The blond nodded.

_ Munch, munch, munch… crunch, crunch, crunch. _

The boys had eaten a bunch of apples, and were getting their full selfishly; they practically ate most of the apples on the one tree Ness got his first few from. They sat underneath it, plotting senselessly as they ate in the more than beautiful orchard. 

With his mouth chock full of fruit, Ness said mushy, "Where thersh a farm, thersh people. * _ swallow* _ and we could probably ask them where we're at, best leaving out the fact that you ruined a part of their fence and that we ate off one tree of apples. Also that we've stolen apples off another tree to take with us."

Lucas rose a brow. "We didn't do the last part, though—”

That was when Ness walked up to the next tree, and began harvesting and fitting all the apples he could into his backpack. Lucas sat on his knees, staring. He waited a good chunk of time for Ness to steal the apples off the owner's property, enough to make his backpack fill to the brim. 

When the hatted boy was done, he came back and sat in front of Lucas, who didn't question a thing. 

"Anyways, continuing on, that's the plan, we stick to it, then we bail. No going off of it. We could probably even take advantage of the situation if the owners are nice," Ness advised. 

"Advantage?" 

"Yeah, like use their shower and stay the night or something."

Lucas nodded, completely agreeing. "Sounds good! I mean they can't be too unreasonable."

"Unless they're stupid, but I wouldn't like to doubt them before meeting them. Although, I still think they'll be stupid," Ness thought aloud. 

Lucas threw a face at Ness. "I doubt the people who run this place will be stupid."

"You don't know that. It’s a farm, which only takes at most, manual labor."

"Well let's find out then." Lucas got up, clearly satisfied with all the apples they've eaten. "Before it gets too late."

Ness got up too, flung his backpack over his shoulders, and started in the direction toward the inside of the collection of trees. Lucas followed along. They walked side by side with the usual gap in between them. Their shoes hit the nice, luscious grass as they walked down an aisle of trees. They had goals, but the sight was too breathtaking for them to ignore. 

Both of the boys looked around, calming their walking pace into something more casual. They took their time, looking at each green tree brilliantly shining with red enriching orbs they fed upon earlier. The trees were planted in straight lines and there they walked, in between those beautiful trunks. The aisle they walked down could've been the equivalent of walking down the same aisle on a wedding day. 

_ So beautiful... This is amazing...  _ Lucas walked in awe of his surroundings. Although, once he was tired, he switched his gaze over to Ness whom was still captivated. Lucas' thoughts instantly ran back to Ness helping him with his ice PSI. Though Lucas was used as a plaything momentarily to Ness, he learned a valuable lesson to using his powers now. He couldn't have been more grateful. 

After a while, his gaze on Ness ended up attracting the raven-haired boy himself, making him return the stare. Lucas didn't mean for that to happen and looked forwards again and away from Ness when the other boy looked back at him. Lucas' heart fluttered a tiny bit, being caught staring; he couldn't explain why though. 

Ness, however, still looked over at Lucas when he had turned his face away. Lucas could feel the stare, moreover, see it in his peripheral vision slightly. 

“What’s up?” Ness asked. 

Lucas only shook his head. He continued walking, awkwardly spacing even further away from the raven-haired boy at this point. For some reason it was getting harder and harder for Lucas to explain why heat is invading his face and why his stomach feels a bit anxious around Ness now.

“You sure? Because you’re being really active with your ice today,” Ness commented, pointing to the ground behind Lucas. The blond innocently turned around, then jumped a little at the sight. 

He had been walking and every footstep he had taken covered the ground with ice just recently. Lucas stopped in his tracks to look down at his feet, inspecting the undersides of both of his shoes, which looked completely fine.

“...” Lucas bit the inside of his cheek. By now, he had gotten used to his icy powers coming out of nowhere; but if Ness said that it all relied on emotion, what could it have come out for? Lucas surely wasn’t mad. The blond tested a few more steps on the ground, but there was no more ice. The frosted footsteps were short-lived. 

Ness was silently entertained, but it wasn’t written on his face at all. Lucas was a bit more quiet than usual, but he didn’t care, nor mind in the slightest. 

They continued walking again, finding themselves at the end of one aisle of the orchard. From there, they were able to see the many other fruits that were being grown, including peaches and berry bushes. Though Lucas and Ness were too stuffed to the brim to bother to take those now. It was only at this moment both boys realized the orchard was bigger than it looked. No owner house was seen so far. Again, they’d have to go on a magnificent search for something.

* * *

“I’m glad I’m full, but I’m getting so damn tired.” Ness craned his head backwards, wanting to relieve the stress the backpack would soon have on him over time. It was surprising that it wasn’t until now that it really started to bother Ness’ back. Lucas looked over at him, concerned.

“I could hold it for a bit if you don’t mind,” Lucas offered without a second thought. Ness stared at him, and thought about it.

“I’m fine,” the boy replied in that careless tone of his.

Lucas merely looked up ahead at that, saying, “Alright, but the offer still holds, okay?”

“Ah,” Ness sounded in response. 

...

_ “Thanks, Luke.” _

The blond thought he heard something, turning back to look at Ness, who looked away slowly in return. His face still held no emotion the whole trip around the orchard. 

Ness was the one who had said that, but Lucas thought it was his imagination.

* * *

"Pears, berries, peaches. I've seen this combination before," Lucas speculated.

"What? Like fucking 30 seconds ago?" Ness groaned afterwards, his impatience driving him off his calm platter.

"Well, more like 37.45 seconds ago, but I could be wrong," Lucas replied back, seriously. Ness tossed him a face of utter irritation and exhaustion. Lucas smiled a bit, stifling a small laugh. 

* * *

"NESS! Over there!" Lucas shouted excitedly, pointing diagonal from where they were walking.

"Those are... Just trees..." Ness was falling back slowly, heavy pants escaping from his mouth. He didn't bother to look. Now the backpack really was taking its toll on Ness. It was stupidly heavier than how it looked. His healing leg was also a drawback on his reservoir of energy. 

"I'm serious, Ness!  _ Look. _ " Lucas flailed the one arm he pointed with. This time, Ness turned his head right; his eyes widened with hope. 

"FINALLY." Ness immediately walked in the very direction of the large farm cabin they saw, leaving Lucas slightly in the dust. The blond stammered at Ness' sudden movement then trailed behind him as usual. Their pace picked up, heading for the cabin to get directions already. 

However, Ness stopped and hid behind a bush, signalling Lucas to do the same, right next to him.

"Wait, what're we—" 

Ness interrupted, "There's a guy showing up to the front door."

"...?" Lucas complied. 

Their positions behind the berry bush made way for them to see the whole front of the cabin while also concealing themselves very well. There, a skinny red necked man came plodding clumsily to the front door, as if in a panic. He looked as if he had been running. 

_ "JOHNNAY!"  _ the skinny man said in a heavy accent as he knocked on the door recklessly,  _ "OPEN UP!" _

The front door slammed open, revealing a smaller, heavy weighted man in comparison to the one knocking at the door. It became clear to the boys that that man was indeed, Johnny.

_ "WHA'DA YA WANT, SPUR?!"  _ Johnny said, distraught,  _ "YOU DOWNRIGHT WOKEN ME FROM MAH AFTERNEWN BEAUTY SLUMBER!" _

"..." The boys looked from the men, then to each other. 

"Why are they yelling..?" Lucas asked judgmentally. 

"Like I said, and I was right, they're stupid," Ness finalized. 

"I'll give you the win for that," Lucas agreed without argument, "but do you really think they're the orchard owners?  _ Them? _ "

"This is the only house we've seen in probably miles of this damn place. Darn tootin’ they are," Ness said, adding a little accent similar to the men's in front of them at the end of his sentence mockingly. A soft, uncontrollable giggle escaped Lucas' mouth that the blond had to cover in order to stay silent. Following the blond's giggle, Ness also chuckled with him. 

_ "THE FENCE, JOHNNAY, THE FENCE!!" _

The boys' laughter died down, as they leaned their ears in closer. Their blood ran cold. 

_ "WHUH—WHUH BOUT IT?!" _

_ "IT'S BROKEN! THERE'S TRESPASSERS!"  _

_ "DAGNABBIT, ARE YOU FLIPPIN' MAH SKILLET, SPUR?!" _

_ "NO, I SWEAR! IT LOOKED AS IF A SNOWMAN DOWNRIGHT FLOUSTED THAT THERE FENCE ON THE EASTERN END!" _

"PFFFFFFFFF—" Ness held his mouth closed, letting his head fall to the grass the two lied down upon. He was dying of internal laughter, as he pounded his fist in the soil, letting his face grow red. He couldn't take the silly accent the two farmers were talking in. 

"N-Ness!" Lucas whispered, stifling his laughs in, too, "W-We gotta pay attention! They're talking about us!" A crooked smile laid on his face, staring at Ness who was completely losing it to the men's accents. 

"H-Hey,  _ *stifled laughter*  _ A-Are ya 'flippin' mah skillet', Lucas?" Ness replied, dying of laughter afterwards. Lucas wasn't prepared for that, thus, laughing outwardly as well. He had never seen Ness act so silly. The boys rolled on their sides, keeping as quiet as they could. 

_ "OOOOH!"  _ Johnny fumed, now believing in his buddy, Spur.  _ "WHEN I FIND OUT WHO DID THIS HE’LL REGRET MESSIN’ WITH MAH WIRES! I’VE GOT A POCKET FULL OF THESE HERE SHOVELS AND HOES AND I WILL SHANK THESE TRESPASSERS BACK TO THEIR MOMMAS’!” _

Though Johnny's threat was all the more serious, it only made the teenage boys laugh at them even more. 

"I-I can't go o-on, Luke—!!" Ness held onto his sides, trying to breathe more air in. 

"Me-Me neither...!!!" Lucas' face has gone completely red. He, too, was suffering the same laughter syndrome as Ness was.

“ _These don’t seem to be like any other trespassers though Johnnay—the fence was frozen!_ ” Spur went on.

Johnny’s face instantly became more alert than the one prior. “... _ The aliens again? _ ”

_ Aliens? _ Lucas barely lifted his head up attentively.  _ What? _

Afterwards, the men seemed to have gone off to the back of their cabin, disappearing from the two boys' sights. It took a long while for Ness and Lucas to notice, but when they did, they slightly panicked. Their eyes flew many different ways, trying to see if they could catch where the men were if they were still around.

“Where’d they go?!” Lucas asked as he turned to Ness. The raven-haired boy stared around annoyingly; he switched from his once in a lifetime silly nature, back into his monotonous, serious tone.

“I don’t know,” Ness said, irritably. 

They boys were at a standstill, but their questions were quickly answered when the two men walked out around from the back of their cabin, carrying literally shovels and hoes.

“They really got the—” Ness was beginning to laugh again, but Lucas stopped him before he could.

“Stop stop! They’re gonna get away again!” Lucas was smiling, however. 

Ness clicked back to reality with Lucas’ help before he could disappear from it again, then quickly rose up from the bush. Lucas was unsure about what Ness was planning, but let him do what he did. He didn’t expect Ness to blatantly approach the men, however.

The raven-haired boy left his backpack with Lucas, took off his hat and hooked it onto the waist of his cargo pants, and casually approached the two men out front. Lucas was hesitant to show up, but he didn’t know whether he should stick with Ness at the moment. He thought about it, and just stayed safe behind the bush.

_ “Hello,”  _ Ness greeted as his usual self. The farmers flinched at his sudden arrival, backing away with concern.

The men didn’t know how to react to such a sudden show up, Lucas, himself, wouldn’t know what he would’ve done after hearing their expensive fence got thrashed in, then a stranger showed up at the front of their home.

The men said nothing, only strangely looking at the little boy in front of them.

_ “Do you know where we’re at?” _ Ness continued, getting straight to the point.

_ “H-Hey whuh’re you goin’ at?!”  _ Spur was the first to speak of the two farmers,  _ “Who’re you?!” _

_ “Oh, well I’m Ness,” _ the raven-haired boy replied matter of factly.

_ Wow,  _ Lucas thought,  _ this guy really sticks to plans.  _ The blond watched entertainingly.

_ “No,”  _ now Johnny spoke, looking very displeased. Him and Spur backed away, prepping the usage of their gardening tools threateningly. Johnny poked Ness at the leg with a hoe, making the raven-haired boy pull backwards.  _ “Yer not supposed to BE here.”  _

_ “I got lost.”  _ Ness shrugged, not caring, still.

Lucas got a bit scared for Ness, but let him do as is. Even though the two men towered unfairly over the boy, Lucas remained confident Ness would talk everything into his hands. However, the farmers still looked untrusting. They were at the least smart enough to know the only way inside the orchard was through the broken-iced fence. Ness really wasn’t supposed to be here; this gave the men all the right to be angry and untrusting.

_ “Gettin lost wudn’t lead you here,” _ Spur said threateningly, aiding his friend.

…Ness shrugged.

Lucas narrowed his eyes at the raven-haired boy.  _ Is that really all he’s going to do?! _

Johnny went on,  _ “Yer lucky we wouldn’t hurt a little ol’ boy, but I suggest you get outta our faces—” _

From afar, Lucas saw Ness front kick the heavier of the two men in the gut. Johnny fumbled backwards and hit his back on the front of the cabin. Spur was taken by surprise afterwards as well, but instead received a roundhouse kick to the side. The men were stunned momentarily as they dropped the tools they were holding. Ness’ PSI only gave him stronger physical capabilities. 

_ WHAT?! _ Lucas screamed internally at how Ness was treating them, even though the men had every right to send him away.

_ “WHERE AM I?”  _ Ness yelled, a puff of smoke coming out of his mouth. He picked up a dropped hoe and aimed the blunt wooden end at the men.

“ _ S-Saturn Valley Orchard!”  _ Spur admitted, cowering next to Johnny.

_ “Thank you,”  _ Ness said gratefully, but morbid. Afterwards, Ness still used the hoe, and sweeped the wooden end at the men’s heads, sending them goodnight for a long while.

“NESS!” Lucas wailed, now. He ran up to the raven-haired boy and jerked the tool out of the boy’s hands. He threw it to the side then tended to the men’s unconscious bodies. The blond shook them, scared that Ness might’ve done some irreparable damage.

“They’re fine, I just knocked them out,” Ness explained, “this isn’t the first time I’ve done this; they weren’t going with our plan anyways.”

Lucas’ heart beated so fast as he held Spur’s head in with his hands, inspecting it carefully. A small trail of blood ran down his cranium to his neck, which got on Lucas’ hand accidentally. The blond whimpered, letting go of the man, thus, letting his body fall to the grassy ground in the process.

Lucas wiped the blood on his shorts then stared genuinely angry at Ness once again. The raven-haired boy didn’t care, but listened to Lucas’ input anyway.

“You’ve snuck into their orchard, stolen a part of their property, and hurt them! They’re bleeding!” Lucas was frustrated, clearly preferring what’s morally right. “You don’t just—just  _ use _ them!”

“But they’re not  _ dying _ , calm your shit,” Ness corrected, annoyed, “and you went along with all of this, anyways. You ate the apples  _ with _ me, and  _ you _ broke the fence.”

“All because of you! I was against all of this from the start!” Lucas griped.

“Then WHY did you go along with it, then?” Ness rolled his eyes for the blond to see.

“Because I trusted you!!” Lucas admitted, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone… even if it’s harmless altogether…”

“...” Ness only stared at Lucas because he didn’t know how to reply to that. 

Lucas just clicked his tongue disappointingly and went back to the men on the ground. He leaned Spur up and wiped the man’s neck with his own hand; he was completely unfazed by the presence of blood as he cleaned the fresh trail of crimson liquid and wiped it on his own striped shirt. He was about to do the same with Johnny, until Ness spoke up once again.

“Stop, stop,” Ness insisted in a low voice. Lucas furrowed his eyebrows.

“Don’t tell me not to,” Lucas spat passively, about to tend to Johnny.

“I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just—” Ness groaned a little in between, “just wait here a moment.” 

Lucas watched as the raven-haired boy quickly walked back to the bush, picked up his backpack, then brought it back near the blond. Ness dropped his bag to the floor, unzipped it, then pulled out a clean rag. He tossed it to Lucas.

The blond was mad, but not as mad as he was earlier. Though, he wouldn’t let Ness giving him a rag to help out the men atone for what he’s done already.

Lucas continued until he was finished cleaning the blood from the men’s heads and gave the rag back to Ness, who took it back, and stuffed it into one of the many pockets in his cargo pants. Still, nothing was said.

_ He’s pissed, I just know it,  _ Lucas regretted, but stayed true to himself,  _ get ready for another argument, Lucas... _

“...Go wash your hands inside,” Ness demanded. Lucas stood, eyes slightly more widened. “Fucking get inside the house already.”

Lucas wasn’t going to test Ness’ anger any longer, fearful that something worse was going to happen if he did. He awkwardly went to the front door of the cabin and opened it with a small creak. The blond looked behind him once again, seeing Ness glower from behind, and took that as a signal to get his ass in the house. 

Lucas closed the door behind him, and strangely trailed around the house, hoping it was only the two men who inhabited the rather nice looking place. When he was sure no one else was inside, he searched for a kitchen or bathroom, finding a bathroom before the kitchen. He went in, closed the door, and turned the faucet on. Though the farmers’ outwardly appearance and personality weren’t as bright, the cabin was two stories and looked simply amazing and clean. There was electricity, even in the middle of all these trees.

Lucas vigorously rubbed soap on his hands, washing off blood and dirt from his skin that he obtained from the past few days. Hygiene calmed his spirits as he stayed within the bathroom for longer than it took washing hands would. After finishing, he stared deeply into the mirror that showed his whole head and the upper half of his torso. He frowned, then rinsed his dirtied face off. He resumed staring again.

It’s been awhile since Lucas really got to relax in privacy, at least, without Ness around, silently judging him and commenting. The blond took a deep breath in, then out.

_ All this just to get home… just how far are we…? _ Lucas questioned, keeping a straight face. It’s been a long time since he’s thought about how confused he really is. He couldn’t believe he didn’t even react to the existence of PSI magic. Ness is literally blowing out fire like a dragon, and he, himself, has been behaving like some sort of Disney ice queen.  _ What the heck. _

What turned from an escort home felt like a survival mission. Lucas cursed that bear for chasing them off track, or so Ness made it seem.

The blond relaxed, dried his hands and face on the clean white hung towels, then exited the bathroom. He strolled around the wooden floor, locating the front door once again. There, Lucas was greeted by a spiteful Ness who was doing something the blond didn’t expect him to do.

Right there in the living room, Ness had carried both of the men and settled their unconscious bodies on two separate couches. He had already bandaged Johnny and was in the middle of bandaging Spur. Their entities looked at peace in their rather deep sleep as Ness turned towards the blond. He packed up his first aid kit maliciously, clearly revealing to Lucas that he was still kind of mad, but didn’t say anything about it.

“If it wasn’t obvious already, we’re spending the next night here,” Ness said, then disappeared up the stairs along with his backpack. He was too fast for Lucas to respond, and simply did as he would even if the blond wasn’t there. Lucas waited down at the bottom of the stairs, staring at Spur and Johnny, then back up the stairs again when Ness came down. He didn’t have his backpack with him.

“There’s two bedrooms, surprisingly clean,” Ness actually sounded pleased. He didn’t bother to make anymore eye contact with Lucas, the blond realized. 

“O-Oh, okay,” Lucas agreed, not going to argue using the men’s house. They’ve already came  _ this _ far, anyways. Why not?

A thought still bothered Lucas, however. He was always the type to give in after a while; he was such a kind soul most of the time.

“Um, Ness?”

Ness was about to go explore more of the house, stopped by Lucas’ call. “What?” he said curtly.

“I’m sorry about yelling at you earlier…” Lucas shuffled his legs as he casted his eyes downward. “...”

“You need to quit apologizing,” was all Ness said. The raven-haired boy paused, and Lucas observed his actions. The hatted boy’s gloved hands trembled. In noticing that, Ness hid it behind his back. “You’re not the wrong one anyways.”

“I feel like the wrong one, though,” Lucas admitted, “I mean you’re just doing it for the both of us…”

“Was I really, though?” Ness asked, but it felt like he was asking himself that question. He looked honestly bugged. A gray smoke of his fire PSI flew out of his mouth as he exhaled. Lucas felt like Ness wanted to say something, but couldn’t.

“I-I dunno,” Lucas said nervously, “were you?”

“I personally don’t like sleeping in the forest,” Ness said quickly, “I wanted to leech off these guys from the start, thinking you wouldn’t care if we did. But you did. So fuck.” His brows wrinkled inwards. His breaths got more heavier and visible to see; he exhaled more and more faint smoke.

“It’s not a big deal, I swear, it’s okay!” Lucas thought Ness was like a ticking time-bomb. He’s never seen the boy react this way before. For the sake of the house experiencing a possible explosion before the two would get to spend the night in it, Lucas remained calm and said everything nicely; which is basically how he would’ve talked in the first place anyways.

“N-No it’s not,” Ness stammered. His face broke from its careless expression into a guilty calamity. Lucas believed it wasn’t important enough to care about at this point, but Ness seemed to be taking it more to heart than it he made it seem earlier.

“I’m s-sorry, Lucas.” Ness shook. His violet eyes heightened in brightness as his pupils constricted greatly. Lucas sweatdropped.

“Like I said, it’s fine…” Lucas calmly cooed, hoping to sedate the boy in front of him. The blond had returned to a happier mood, receiving an apology from the boy who seemed like he would only say it once in a blue moon. However, the more he watched Ness, the more the raven-haired boy stared back fearfully and distrustingly.

Ness shook his head and fidgeted, wrapping his arms around himself and clamping his hands on his hoodie-sleeved arms. His violet eyes glimmered strong, and Lucas felt like Ness’ stare shot straight through him. 

Lucas came a bit closer. “Ness… are you okay…?” The blond gave him a helping hand, which Ness flinched at. He instinctively slapped the blond’s hand away from him, denying his offer.

“Stealings b-bad,” Ness strung out woefully, “beating people up is also b-bad.  _ Using _ them is bad.” The words coming from his mouth sounded like some sort of reflective mantra; memories from the past flooded into his head. “Yet you… you’re…” 

Ness’ PSI has long before activated when his eyes glowed, looking into Lucas’ heart. He couldn’t comprehend the blond’s feelings. It was there in front of him, but he just didn’t get why they were there, and why they were directed at  _ him _ .

The blond crumpled his fingers into a fist at his side. He was growing extremely worried. “D-Do you wanna just—lie down for a bit?” he presented the idea for Ness to calm down, if Lucas himself couldn’t do anything.

Ness nodded, still hugging himself, and walked up the stairs without Lucas’ help at all. The raven-haired boy ended up running up the whole staircase so that Lucas wouldn’t feel obligated to follow, which he didn’t.

“Uh, I’ll make dinner or something!!” Lucas called out. Ness heard, but didn’t say anything; he was already up the stairs and around the corner, heading for Johnny’s room where he laid and engulfed himself in the thick bed sheets.

Lucas stood, staring up at the second floor. He bit his lip.

_ I’ll never understand this guy. _


	9. We Don't Need Directions, Still (2 of 2)

_They have SO MUCH EGGS!!_  Lucas bellowed inside his head, drool starting to go down the corner of his mouth. He was currently looking into the contents of the cabin’s refrigerator. He was pleased.

 _And there’s so much fruit and soda and fruit juice and cheese and BACOOOOOOOOOON-_ Lucas felt faint. Even his house before everything happened didn’t have this much food in it. All they had were sandwich supplies most of the time and Lucas easily got tired of those. At this point, he was half-tempted to ask Ness to throw out some of the apples he stocked in his backpack to make room for all _this_ instead.

 _Wh- But stealing’s bad, Lucas!_ Lucas scolded himself, yanking out the carton of eggs and bacon. He had to admit that Ness was kind of rubbing off on him, but the farmers had more than enough to share, so…

He explored the kitchen for pan. When he found one, he settled it on the stove and began cooking from there.

_Kshhhh…!_

A distant rush of water was heard. Lucas turned his head in the general direction; Ness had decided to take his shower, apparently.

* * *

Cheese and bacon-filled omelettes.

Lucas liked his fattening creation, and even confidently stared at the two plates he had prepared for both him and Ness. However, it took him until now to realize something.

 _I just cooked breakfast._ The blond gawked at the omelettes. He looked outside to see that it was indeed, dark now. He resumed staring at the magnificent omelettes, then shrugged to himself. _Eh._ He smiled afterwards.

He got out two cups of juice, then forks and put them on the plates he had settled on the sleek wooden table. It was now time to call the raven-haired boy down for dinner. Lucas felt like a mother at the moment, but was struck by the fact that Ness wasn’t at all looking too well when he had ran up the stairs half an hour ago. The blond scratched at his chin in thought, then decided to head up the stairs—however, he ate his fill of his own omelette before doing so—with the plate and cup he’d prepped for Ness to eat.  

Lucas looked down the hallway of the second floor once he got there, and there were 4 doors. He traveled, peeking through each room until there was only one left; closed.

He softly nudged the door due to his hands already being occupied.

“Ness? You in there?” Lucas called.

 _“Go away…”_ Ness lamented on the other side.

“Can I come in?” Lucas bothered to ask anyways.

_“No.”_

“I made food for you,” Lucas added.

…

No words.

With that, Lucas struggled to open the door when his hands were already full. After seeing the blond barge in, Ness withdrew and covered his whole self in the blanket, even his head. Lucas carefully walked in, holding the plate and cup like a waiter, and set it on something, which ended up being on the drawer next to the bed itself. Then Lucas proceeded to stare at the lump that was Ness hiding underneath the sheets.

Ness really did act like a little kid at times; how he looked was downright ridiculous and funny to Lucas. The raven-haired boy remained still, waiting underneath the sheets for Lucas to leave. Though, the blond wasn’t aware of that, and only poked at the sheets Ness was under.

“What’re you doing?” Lucas had a crooked smile on his face, trying not to giggle in the slightest.

“Nothing, can you go now?” Ness asked rudely.

“Not until I see you eating,” Lucas finalized. The raven-haired boy groaned. He seemed to be acting normal again, but just unwilling to do things at the moment.

Ness hesitantly slipped from under the blanket, revealing his top half. Right now, his hat was off, his black hair was disheveled, and Lucas saw what he hadn’t seen Ness in quite yet. His blue hoodie wasn’t on and he saw him wearing a yellow and blue striped tee. The look was weird, but similar to himself, Lucas thought. The raven-haired boy looked self-conscious as Lucas inspected him blatantly.

Ness glowered at Lucas momentarily for looking too long. A huff of smoke flew from his mouth. “Well?”

“O-Oh.” Lucas blushed a little, and handed the boy the omelette. Ness was careful to take it.

At that moment, Ness activated his emotion reading PSI, making his eyes glow like they did before. He kept his stare on the platter, but his mind focused on Lucas’. He did everything casually. Lucas remained unknowing of when Ness read him. All the blond did was wait for Ness to take the first bite.

Ness took the fork and chopped a piece off. He then stuck the cheese and bacon-filled part in his mouth, and started chewing. By his face, he was pleased.

“...It’s good,” Ness whispered, beginning to eat more of it. Lucas grinned sheepishly in return. He still waited in the room. An awkward silence followed as Ness devoured the being that was the dinner omelette.

Ness put the plate on the drawer where Lucas originally had it when he was done. He picked up the cup afterwards and chugged the drink down, wiping a bit at his lips when he had finished; he also put that back on the drawer.

Ness shuffled on the bed for a more comfortable sitting position. He shivered, telling Lucas that his presence was making him cold, again. Though, the blond didn’t seem to notice as he stared at Ness for a long period of time. The raven-haired boy sat there on the bed, not minding the cold as he analyzed Lucas’ feelings even further to clarify if his past readings were actually true.

 _Happy… proud… embarrassed…_ Ness felt from Lucas. So far, the usual.

 _Passionate… content…_ Ness continued, _satisfied… in lo-_

The raven-haired boy held onto his mouth, gagging a little as he lurched forward.

“You okay?!” Lucas asked worriedly. That seemed to snap the blond out of it.

“Lucas…” Ness trailed off, hiding his hints of disgust. The emotion reading from Lucas came so suddenly; Ness rarely bothered to look into anyone’s emotion at all, especially the blond’s. Now that he did once again, he wished he never had in the first place.

“Y-Yeah?” The blond was at full attention.

Ness pursed his lips together. “I need to ask you a few things… they’re very important, so answer them honestly.”

“What is it?” Lucas tilted his head. He was growing tired of standing the whole time, and took a seat on the edge of the foot of the bed. Ness didn’t mind; he didn’t care, to be exact.

“Ever had a girlfriend before?”

“...? Why do you ask?”

“Just answer it.”

“No…”

Ness gulped, feeling his thighs flex for no good reason other than tension. “Why?”

“Well, I don’t meet any often, I’ve been homeschooled my whole life,” Lucas explained, “when I do I’ve never gotten close to them.”

“Ah,” Ness understood. He quickly went to the next question. “Well, ever watched er- porn?”

“Corn?”

“No, _porn_ ,” Ness emphasized.

“What’s that?” Lucas questioned.

Ness was genuinely surprised. He leaned up more towards the blond. “How do you _not_ know?”

Lucas flustered, thinking it was some sort of requirement to know of, and feeling stupid that he didn’t understand. “I just don’t..?!”

“Oh my god.” Ness made the facepalm of the year. “Just how old are you…?”

“15…”

“You’re only one year younger than me,” Ness’ eyes widened expecting something completely different. Lucas’ cerulean eyes brightened at the newly obtained knowledge.

“Woah.” Lucas grinned for a moment, then disappeared. “But what’s porn?”

“Nevermind that.” Ness waved a hand in the air, shaking the topic off. He then changed his mind immediately afterwards, “Wait, no, actually—hand me my backpack over there.” The boy pointed to the corner of the room. Lucas nodded, plodded off in that direction, and lugged the heavy backpack onto the bed with Ness. The raven-haired boy unzipped the pack and dug deep into it until he reached the desired item he was aiming for. The item that would figure out Ness’ assumption on Lucas.

He pulled out a magazine type object from his backpack, flipped through the pages quickly, then tossed it over to Lucas.

“Look through it, and try not to freeze it,” Ness warned. _“If you even will…”_ he whispered the last part to himself.

“A-Alright.” Lucas made a look of determination. The cover looked innocent, and Lucas at first thought it was some sort of women’s fashion magazine. He thought the girl on the cover looked awfully pretty, cherished it, then moved onto the inside. His eyes widened slowly as he took in what was being done to that girl. He shrieked, still holding the magazine, then looked to Ness.

“W-WHAT IS THIS?!” Lucas was blushing like crazy. Ness couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s _porn_ , welcome to life’s joys and pleasures.” The raven-haired boy snickered. “How is it?”

“I-It’s, u-um…” Lucas shied away as his voice got lower, “it’s okay…”

“Now, tell me.” Ness put his hands together and pointed it in the general direction of Lucas. “Do you find yourself staring at the male, or female, more?”

“I’m not getting why you’re asking me these weird questions…” Lucas panicked, still looking at the magazine fumbly.

“Just _answer_ them,” Ness pushed, smirking.

“T-The, m—” Lucas stopped right there, and closed the magazine immediately. “I-I really don’t want to answer anymore, Ness.” He handed the book back to the raven-haired boy, and scooted off the bed in the end, to run away.

Ness groaned aloud, “Come _on,_ dude.” He clicked his tongue, getting off the bed.

 _Ashamed… aroused…_ Ness read the feelings of Lucas as the blond made his way for the door. The raven-haired one swiftly closed the door shut on Lucas before he was able to get out. Ness didn’t know why he was forcing the blond to tell him, why he even _cared_ enough to. He just died to know. The extreme cold he experienced didn’t matter.

“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me, blondie,” Ness said detestably. He cornered Lucas with both arms extra carefully, considering his bare skin was more prominent to touch because of the hoodie, gloves, and cargo pants he stripped off. He was left standing in his plaid boxers, tee, and socks.

 _What the heck?!_ Lucas thought, finding himself extremely frightened by the other boy’s actions, _What does he even want?_

“Stop forcing me to!” Lucas upsettingly frowned. His heart beated fast.

“Don’t make me do this the hard way,” Ness cautioned, about to take drastic measures. The raven-haired boy couldn’t help it. He really, really wanted to know Lucas’ tastes.

“I-I won’t say anything!” Lucas said stubbornly. “Please stop it! I don’t see the big deal in this anyways!”

 _“You forced me to…”_ Ness whispered to himself.

Afterwards, the raven-haired boy leaned his face almost close for the both of theirs to touch. He stared at Lucas seductively with his half-lidded eyes. The blond trembled, backing further into the wall behind him, though it didn’t make a cent of space between him and Ness. Lucas was shyly, but passionately engulfed in the other’s rare, violet eyes. Their mouths were close, but never making contact. Instinctively, Lucas anxiously turned his head down and to the side.

 _“Lucas…”_ Ness cooed into the blond’s ear. He exhaled a puff of warm air down Lucas’ neck. The blond shivered, whimpering vulnerably in return.

“S-Stop…” Lucas mewled. He closed his eyes shut, feeling his body heat up. He felt as if his heart would’ve beaten out of his chest.

 _“Do you like me?”_ Ness muttered. Lucas didn’t nod or shake his head.

The blond forced himself to look Ness in the eye; revealing to Ness a shocked, confused, and embarrassed facial expression. Lucas' face was pure pink, and his cerulean eyes glimmered innocently. Lucas felt faint from the oncoming pressure Ness was putting on him.

Lucas took a moment to absorb the question, only to end up saying what his guts told him to, “N-NO! Of course not! You’re a guy!”

Ness continued reading, _Fear… Hysteria… Excitement…-_

The raven-haired boy’s telepathy PSI wore off when the blond’s icy PSI chose to show up again. Ness’ violet eyes stopped its glow as the wall Lucas backed up against started to be eaten up by a sheet of ice. Lucas trembled, standing completely still in front of Ness. The raven-haired boy backed away, and when he did, that was when the blond cut his focus from Ness, and went to stare at what the other boy gaped at.

Lucas backed away from the ice-covered wall as well. It froze a big portion of the wall and half of the door, too. Ness flew for retreat at the bed, where Lucas watched him dig into his backpack nervously; he pulled out his cargo pants, hoodie, and gloves. He slipped them on quickly, then backed away from that stone cold wall Lucas touched. The sudden ice presence made the raven-haired boy colder than usual without his outfit on.

Ness growled at Lucas. “Ugh, you fucked up one of those retards’ room!” he told Lucas rudely. He hugged at himself as he activated his fire PSI for warmth, and to melt the following ice on the wall.

“W-Well you shouldn’t have done- w-whatever you were doing!” Lucas stammered, pink cheeks starting to wear away. Ness shook his head, upset. “What were you even doing?!”

“Asking questions,” Ness replied in a smartass tone, “and quite frankly, all you needed to do was _answer_ them. Not make a fucking glacier in this damn room!”

Lucas grimaced momentarily. “‘Questions’?! They were horrible questions! Why would you even ask them?! Geez!” The blond fidgeted at the heat Ness was radiating off of himself to melt the iced wall.

“Forget it,” Ness concluded, “just get the hell out of the room once I melt this shit off.” He looked angry with guilt mixed into the recipe. He made the environment around him even hotter, reducing Lucas to sweats. He wanted to melt the ice off the door as soon as possible to get the boy out of the room.

Lucas clicked his tongue, backing away from the stubborn raven-haired boy. It was as if he had to always remind himself of Ness’ ‘autism’ in order to deal with the boy’s meanness. It frustrated Lucas to no end that Ness was probably the hardest person he’s ever handled in his life. The blond didn’t understand him, and Ness would have sudden surges of kindness, then slip right back to his irritable state; Lucas was never sure when to trust the boy or not. He never felt accepted, and when he did, it’d all seem like a short-lived moment.

The ice melted off, and Ness made the pathway out of the room possible.

Lucas fretted, taking small, conservative steps out of the room. He shakily grabbed the handle of the door, twisted it, then tugged on it. The damp wooden door opened with a loud creak, as the blond slipped out of the room. However, Ness yanked at the back of Lucas’ collar with a gloved hand.

“Ngh!” Lucas gagged a bit by the grab. He turned around to face Ness again, who looked at him with angry, disgusted eyes.

“And by the way, keep your feelings in check,” Ness berated, “faggot.”

He shut the door right in Lucas’ face.


End file.
